Be A Doctor
by infinite.regress17
Summary: The Doctor and Clara are fighting to stay together. Seems like a few of you are reading and following along with this story. I love love love my loyal reader (you know who you are XX) who leaves review to thank me after every chapter. It really cheers me on. If you are enjoying this story too, consider leaving a review to let me know!
1. Chapter 1: The Pilot

"I know what a mind-wipe is, I'm not stupid!" Bill snapped. "How would you feel if someone did this to you?"

His hand froze, almost as if it were not his own. An aching heaviness crept into his chest, sliding icy fingers around his hearts. He knew the pain of having memories stolen. And he knew the pain of getting them back. He wasn't at all sure which was worse. What he did know, he had to be honest with himself, that it was probably best never to take them in the fist place.

How long had he lived without her? How many days since he last saw Clara Oswald? He knew, of course. 18,253, if he counted the chronological days he'd spend teaching at St. Luke's. 36,506, if he counted the days he'd travelled in between, spinning across the impossibly large universe, expecting, hoping, that one day their paths would cross. They never did, of course. Not yet, at any rate. But in a universe of possibilities, anything was possible, if you waited long enough. If you hoped hard enough, loved truly enough, then things that are lost can be found.

He looked at Bill, her eyes demanding honesty, and his hearts knew the answer. To steal memories from someone was a terrible thing. A thing no one should do. Clara knew it. She was telling him now, reminding him that he knew it too.

"I don't know if you are a good man," she'd said. "But you try to be, and maybe that's the point."

He lowered his hand, and couldn't quite look Bill in the eye as she backed from the room. As the door closed, he felt Clara's shadow fall on him, but it didn't chill him this time, it wasn't made of darkness, but of light. He leaned back against his desk, and closed his eyes.

There she was, as she always was when he needed her most. Bright and beautiful and vivid in his mind, her eyes of the deepest brown, her heart open and true. Her voice was clear in his ears. If he reached out, perhaps he could touch her.

"It's been long enough, don't you think, Doctor?"

"Has it?"

"You know it has. You don't do well on your own, and you know it."

"I've done alright—"

"Rubbish! You've sat guarding a dusty vault for fifty years, sulking."

"I haven't."

Clara folded her arms and looked him in the eye.

"Alright. But the contents of that vault are important."

"Maybe so. But it's what you are guarding in here that concerns me more." She tapped his chest, and he could feel, he swore he could feel, her fingers on his skin. "You need her. And do you know what, she needs you too. So go on. Be a Doctor."

"Ah, Clara—" He wanted to tell her he couldn't, that he didn't want to go through it all again, living, loving, losing. It just hurt too much. He was too old, too tired to face it all again.

She put her head on one side. "Doctor, you really can't hide anything from me. You never could, but since I'm _actually_ inside your head this time, it's silly even to try."

He pressed his lips together. "I miss you."

Clara stepped closer to him. "I know. But, I'm giving you permission. No, better than that, I'm _telling_ you. Get inside the TARDIS right now and catch that girl. Do some good in the universe. Doctor, heal yourself."

He felt the ghost of her lips against his. His shoulders relaxed, and he brought his fingers up to his own lips. She was right, she was always right, his Clara.

So, he strode to the TARDIS, but paused on the threshold. "I'll still miss you, Clara Oswald."

"You daft old man," she said. "I'm not going anywhere."

He smiled then, and he knew, he understood perfectly that she would always be with him. Maybe he would find her, maybe he wouldn't. The universe was wonderful and strange, made of lemon drops and smiles, of dark corners and bright places.

And it was waiting right there, all new; waiting for him and for Bill. It was time. Time to be the Doctor.


	2. Chapter 2: Smile

"It's freezing." Bill wrapped her arms around herself and puffed a breath into the frozen air.

The Doctor stomped his foot experimentally on the ice again. "The River Thames. 1814." He glanced back at Bill. He had to admit he was impressed. With her optimistic attitude, her quick wit, and with how she boldly came after him when he needed a hand. Although he'd made a half-hearted attempt at keeping her out of danger by sending her back to the TARDIS, giving her an out if she wanted one, she'd decided not to play it safe. Secretly, he liked that she wanted to be in the thick of it with him. After all, what was he without an audience? He'd missed having someone to share adventures with. A hand to hold. That's what he needed, more than anything else.

Bill shivered, rubbing her arms briskly. "I'm not going out there dressed like this."

"There's a wardrobe," he said. "Up the stairs and to the left, follow the corridor. . . Oh, she'll help you find your way." He patted the blue box affectionately. "The TARDIS will take you where you need to go."

Bill grinned. "Don't go leaving me, now," she said, backing her way into the TARDIS, waving a gently accusatory finger in his direction.

He quirked a half smile. "Me, leave? Absolutely not. I'll be right here." He stepped back inside the TARDIS and closed the door. He leaned for a moment, back against the console, and closed his eyes. It had been quite a day.

"That involved a ridiculous amount of running." Clara's voice was clear inside his head. Here she was again, showing up in the storm room inside his mind. He didn't object. In fact, he'd been hoping she'd show up in his subconscious again.

"I know. Running, wrestling with robots. Almost plunging to my death. I'm thinking of complaining to the management."

Clara laughed. "You should ask for a raise."

He turned to her fully then, and examined her image. It was extraordinary, he thought, what a fevered brain could conjure up. The face he needed to see the most.

For her part, she was quite clearly trying to keep a straight face. "Scary handsome genius from space?"

"Did you like that one?"

"Instant classic." She paused, and then walked a few paces forward. She took a seat in the chair opposite the spot where he stood. "Bill did good."

"Yes she did. You'd like her."

"I already do," Clara said, placing her hands on her lap. "So, how did you do it?" she asked. "Feel happy, I mean, keep smiling when you first suspected the horrible things that had happened?"

"I remembered your smile."

She made a disparaging noise from the side of her mouth. "You never noticed how I looked. You told me you thought my nose was all funny."

"That was Mr Clever," he said quickly.

"No, it really _wasn't._ That was how I knew it was actually you and _not_ Mr Clever."

He didn't have an answer for that since it was entirely true. When the cybercontroller took over his brain, it tried to trick Clara by telling her what it thought she wanted to hear. That bluff failed entirely. She was way too smart to fall for that.

"You spent months exactly and precisely not noticing a single thing about how I looked," she said pointedly.

"Yes, I did try to give that impression."

Clara jumped up and prowled around the console. Then she fixed him with an accusatory stare, and said with an exaggerated flourish, "'We look exactly the same age.' That was hardly a compliment."

"Ah. I did say that," he confessed.

"'Have you had a wash?' I mean, honestly," Clara went on, "if there was anyone in the universe completely oblivious to how I looked, then it was you."

"Idiot with a box," he said, as if that explained everything. He knew that in fact it explained little, and excused nothing. "Ah, Clara, I noticed how you looked. You must know I did. I missed nothing." He saw everything. He felt the turn of the universe. He could measure the distance from the top of a tower to the water below, based on how long it took a chair he'd crashed through the window to hit the surface. He paid attention to details, of course he did.

He sighed and rubbed his temples. Since this was his own mind palace, and in the privacy of his own thoughts, there was one particularly vexing detail he wanted to have out with her.

"If we're on the subject of how you look then, what were you thinking with that dress on the Orient Express?"

She blushed, flushed a most endearing shade of red. Very realistic. "I. Well. You didn't even look at me. I distinctly remember you looking virtually everywhere other than at me!" she said crossly.

"Of course I didn't look at you! Exactly because I had noticed how you looked in that dress. It was. . .dangerous."

She scoffed. "I've never heard a dress described as dangerous before."

"It was. . . distracting. And I was rather busy saving a train load of passengers from a murder-y soldier-mummy!" He hadn't known where to put his eyes that day. She was too perfect, too tempting, and entirely out of reach.

He folded his arms, and she took her place beside him again and folded hers too. They stared straight ahead for several minutes, until finally she glanced at him. He glanced back, and saw her lips had turned up into a smile.

"I wanted you to notice," she said. "I did. I thought if you really saw me, you'd. . ."

"I'd what?"

"Help me decide."

"Decide what?"

"Between you and Danny."

He made a 'pft' sound through his lips. Then he turned fully around to her. "Decide between me and Danny?" he said, with a note of incredulity in his voice.

It was her turn to scoff. "What happened to _Mr I notice everything_?"

"Clearly, not everything. But. . . Well, you didn't choose, did you? You stayed with us both." He'd had eternity to mull that one over. To wonder if things might have been different, if he'd said this, or done that.

"Hmmm, not my finest hour," Clara said, her smile fading. "You were no help, though. If you'd told me about the, noticing, well maybe. . ."

He sighed. He really was very bad at this. He became tongue tied and lip locked the moment he tried to talk about how he really felt. As if there was some unseen force writing lines he didn't want to say, holding back on the ones he did. "I tried to tell you. In the barn in the Viking village."

Clara met his eyes for a moment, and then swirled herself away. "You did say something," she said, lightly, "About my eyes, and my kindness, and my never giving up."

"What I meant was. . ." Words failed him. She always did this to him. Broke his perfectly reasonable huffs down with smiles, melted his hearts, again and again, no matter how hard he tried to stay cool. She always cracked him, Clara Oswald. And now she was doing it again from inside his own head. "Oh, you know what I meant."

"Do I?" she was teasing him now, and he knew it. Then her expression softened, and she stopped right in front of him. She reached a hand up to his cheek. "You did tell me, at the end, at the very last moment. In my TARDIS. You asked me to smile for you, one more time. Then I knew you noticed."

He sighed, suddenly feeling the weight of a hundred years absence heavy in his hearts. "You could barely do it."

"How could I smile, when I was losing you?" she said, sadly.

"I'm sorry, Clara."

"You don't have to be sorry, Doctor. I knew what I was doing. I'm a big girl. I have to live with my mistakes."

"You were braver than me, then. Because I couldn't live with mine." He looked into the distance. Images invaded his consciousness. The Castle, the Veil, digging and digging and digging. The bird and the burning. He'd spent four and a half billion years, afraid, in pain and alone. That's what grief can drive a man to, when he loses someone he loves.

He'd thought that wiping away memories of her would ease the pain, but he was wrong. It just made the pain angry, free-floating, with no anchor to help understand and process the grief. Buzzing around his chest like a swarm of wasps, ready to sting anything in its path to death.

Of course, that knowledge had helped him today. He realised that if a two thousand year old Time Lord couldn't resolve his grief, what chance did nano-bots have? The Vardy were simple robots with a simple mission-statement: Keep people happy. He could see why they decided it was better for people to stop feeling altogether, rather than deal with the outpouring of sadness losing people we love unleashes in wet-brains.

Sometimes he wished he could switch his own emotions off, hit the restart button for his hearts. But that wasn't going to happen, not in this lifetime, anyway. He'd burned a billion times and he'd do it all over again to save Clara.

Something warm brushed his mind. "Come back to me," Clara whispered. "You don't belong there anymore."

He felt, he swore he felt, her small hand squeeze his. Perhaps it was muscle memory. An imprint on his soul so deep that nothing, no amount of time would wear it away.

She was in front of him again, wearing _that_ dress. "See?" she said. If this is your mind-palace. You make the rules. Isn't this more fun?" She turned full around, and stopped in front of him.

"Okay," he said. And this time he did look. Why not? If this was his fantasy, why shouldn't he make it a good one? "Smile for me, Clara Oswald," he said, letting her image sweep through his consciousness like a tidal wave.

She smiled, bright and full, and just for him. No trace of sadness, just joy. "So, my Doctor, how long have you been able to remember me?"

"Well, that would be telling."

"That's why I'm asking," she said, taking his hand.

He felt a rush of happiness swamp him. He didn't want this to end. "I'll tell you, another time. If you come again," he said quickly.

"Clever," Clara replied. "You always were the cleverest, scary handsome man from space. I've always loved that."

He grinned back, his hearts warm and glowing. "I've always loved your smile," he said.

"My what?" Bill said from the top of the stairs. "Who were you just talking to?"

"No one." He jerked away from the spot he'd been standing in, and moved around the console, flicking a switch here and there to help him regain his composure and wipe the daft smile from his face.

Bill came down the steps and back into the console room. "How do I look?"

She wore a green velvet dress, and an ostrich feather tucked in her hair. He almost said, 'with your eyes,' but he heard, he swore he heard Clara cluck disapprovingly in his head. "Like a Victoria lady," he said, graciously.

Bill grinned. "Then I should be accompanied by a Victorian gentleman. There's a fancy blue jacket and a rather dashing waistcoat hanging up in that wardrobe." She nodded towards the stairs.

The Doctor paused for a moment, looking at the place Clara had sat. _Go on,_ she seemed to say. _Be a Doctor._

What the hell, he thought, ditching his black jacket and hanging it over the chair, it was time.

#

20 light years away, Clara Oswald stood in a field of barley, examining a rectangular indentation in the ground. The sun shone overhead, and a white structure with graceful curves gleamed in the distance. "Trouble in paradise," she said.

"What are we even doing here?" Ashildr shielded her eyes from the sun's glare, and pursed her lips.

"Passing through. Helping out." Clara replied. "I want to be sure my descendants really do make it."

"I think these people have already had all the help they can stand for one day," Ashildr said. She folded her arms and squinted at Clara. "You're checking up on him again."

Clara sighed. "I'm really not. I didn't programme the Diner to bring us here, remember."

"That's true. It was odd, how we ended up _here_ when I distinctly remember setting the coordinates for Epsilon Vega."

Clara squatted down and picked up an ear of the flattened barley. It still had that faint tingle that told her it had come into contact with a time machine. She was much more sensitive to residual chrono-energy these days. That's what comes from spending a hundred years tearing about the universe in a stolen TARDIS, she supposed. She looked along two tracks that lead to the building. Footprints, lots of footprints in the earth, as if they had come back and left more than once. Nothing was ever straightforward, was it?

"The universe is very strange," Clara said as she stood up. As casually as she could, she went on, "Since we're here, we could just have a chat to the locals."

Ashildr took her friend's arm indulgently. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt. It might cheer you up for a decade or two."

#

As the two women walked through the fields, two other figures watched them.

"Are you certain this is necessary?" one said, in a small flutter of darkness. It stirred the day's stillness with its wings, ruffling the molecules in the air as it moved in short, agitated steps.

"If you have another solution, I am willing to hear it." The First wrapped a cloak around it's thin, androgynous body. The cloak was made of the blackest black, and seemed to swallow the light, with a million glittering, sparking stars trapped in the fabric, bending the light around it with its blackness.

The Small Darkness did not believe the First thought there was another solution. That was just the kind of thing powerful beings, condescending to keep lesser creatures on side, said to make them think there were choices when there was none. "But sir," it tried, tentatively. "You know about the oath?"

"Indeed. And yet still he travels carelessly. Diverting himself with trivial matters."

The Small Darkness shook its head, for the place where the First had stood was now empty. "I do not believe he considers the fate of these humans trivial," it said, turning, not sure where to direct its comments.

"You weigh the _oath_ against what happened here today?" the First's voice boomed over fields as it became visible again.

The Small Darkness turned itself around completely to face the spot where the First appeared. "No, sir, I merely—"

"You will carry out my instructions." The First swept its cloak over its bony shoulder, as if it were feeling cold, although the Small Darkness knew better. The First _felt_ nothing. At that moment, a cloud drifted over the sun.

"He is not stupid, sir. He will spot a trap," the Small Darkness said. Even then it knew what the First would say.

"Then you will make a trap so beautiful he can not resist."

A wind blew sharply across the fields, bringing more gray clouds into the clear blue sky. The First shimmered, its whole form becoming translucent, and then it vanished. For a moment the place had occupied seemed cold and hollow, as the very fabric of the universe had been sucked dry. Then with a wink of silver light, it became an ordinary spot in a field of barley once more. The Small Darkness sighed. This was shaping up, it thought, to be the most difficult and dangerous mission yet.


	3. Chapter 3: Thin Ice

"Hell, what time is it?" Bill exclaimed.

"One boiled kettle since we were in the basement," the Doctor replied, with a sour glance at Nardole.

"Thank god! I've got to see a mate about a house!"

The Doctor watched Bill dash off, still wearing the green dress, still grinning from ear to ear.

Nardole himself made an effort to stalk off, but succeeded only in waddling grumpily from the office. "I'll check the vault, Sir. Since you seem incapable of keeping your word."

The Doctor sat at his deck, eyes closed, hands ruffling his hair in the absence of the hat. Hat hair, now that was a disturbance he hadn't had to deal with in a while.

"So," a voice began, beside him. "We smack people in the face now, do we?"

He smiled, and felt pleasure coursing through him. He'd hoped this would happen again. He turned and there she was, standing in his office. "Not people," he said. "Racists."

"Oh, no argument from me on that one," Clara said, then bent towards him, conspiratorially. "If anything, it was rather hot."

"Hot?" he said, grinning even further, before he remembered that if this was a construct of his imagination, Clara would of course be telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. But still. He pulled his collar away from his neck a little. Why not enjoy it?

"That jacket and waistcoat, and the hat. . ." Clara smiled, doing the thing where she held his eyes that bit too long, and sent his pulse soaring.

He twitched a smile. "Yes? The waistcoat and jacket, and the hat are. . .?"

Clara batted his arm good naturedly. "Don't be smug," she said, moving away from him with another downright flirtatious smile.

He rubbed his arm. He'd _felt_ that. "I'm two thousand years old," he said. "I've earned smug."

Clara laughed. "You probably have. And you know what, I appreciated you taking a firm stance against tattoos."

He nodded. "Tattoos are terrible things."

Then she took a serious turn, her smile fading. "I don't think Bill understood what she was asking you. When she wanted to know how many people you'd seen die."

"No. How could she? No frame of reference. I've watched far too many people die. Some of them hurt more than others." He felt his throat constrict, his eyes burn. "One of them in particular."

"Do you mean River?" Clara said, with a casual air picking up the photo on his desk. Her tone didn't fool him for a minute.

"For a construct of my subconscious, you do ask some difficult questions,"

Clara shrugged.

He sighed. "I barely knew River when I watched her die. And she lived a good, full life, as I came to discover. Very full." He took a step towards Clara and took the picture from her hands, laying it face down on the desk. "It could never be the same as watching you die."

Clara looked up at him, her eyes drawing him in. All the things he'd wanted to tell her on the Trap Street flooded his mind. That she mattered to him more than anything ever did or ever would. That he wished he'd told her sooner, but he never could find the nerve because he knew deep down that the Doctor in love wasn't a good thing in the universe, it was dangerous even. He'd hoped that if he held the secret tight it would go away. But it never did. And then it was too late, and all he could do was pour all that grief and regret into what came next. All four and a half billion years of it.

"Oh, Doctor," she whispered. She was so close he could almost touch her. Then she blinked, as if the intensity of his stare was too much, as if she was suddenly nervous or afraid.

"Bill asked you if you'd ever killed anyone. I don't think I have the monopoly on difficult questions."

"I told her not to sentimentalise me," the Doctor said. "You should know better than anyone, Clara, just what I can be. I walk your earth, I breathe your air, I even dress myself up to look like I'm human, but I'm not. You can't measure me, size me up and understand my life in human terms. Sometimes I feel like I'm made of darkness, forged in some impossible, deep blackness, and those who spend too much time around me. . ." He raised a hand towards her, but it hung in mid air, a little lost. He closed his eyes and let his hand fall to his side, and turned his face away.

Clara moved closer to him, and he felt the whisper of her hand on his face, compelling him to look back at her.

She said, "I don't believe that. I've never believed it, and I never will. You kill when you have to, so more can live. That's how you deal with your outrage." She tapped his chest. "Two hearts. Your blessing and your curse. You care too much. I see that now."

The way she looked at him broke his hearts. Like she really _saw_ him, and was not afraid. She didn't shy away from what he was, or what he became. As if she truly saw him and accepted him. All of him. But that acceptance burned him too.

"Bill needed to see that, understand those hard choices you make if she's going to be part of your world."

"Baptism on ice," he quipped.

"You were kind today, Doctor," Clara said earnestly. "Amongst the hitting and the hurting, and Bill's tears, you were kind. Kind to those you could save. Kind to those children. Kind to the creature. And kind to Bill, giving her the choice. Trusting her to make a good one."

They both fell silent for a moment. He remembered another choice about the fate of a helpless creature, one not under the Thames, but inside the moon, and how clumsily and carelessly he'd treated Clara that day.

"I learned my lesson, teacher," he whispered, and he wanted to hold her more than ever. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone, especially not you, Clara."

"Hey, I know. I know," she said, tugging the lapels of his jacket.

"Look what I did to you," he whispered, stroking her hair with long fingers. "I cursed you with a life like mine and then left you to it."

"Doctor, stop that. You know as well as I do that I made my own choices," she scolded. "I'm living a good life."

He looked up and smiled ironically. Part of him wanted to believe that was true, so of course that's what this construct of Clara _would_ tell him. "Ah, Clara—" he began, wanting to explain again that he knew he'd gone too far, he accepted it all, but she cut him off with a wave and a small laugh.

"Did the memory wipe work, then? You promised you'd tell me."

He sighed. "Yes and no. For a long time I thought of the place in my memory where you used to be as if it were dark matter."

"Dark matter?"

He laughed, a little sourly. "Dark energy and dark matter make up ninety five percent of the universe. Humans of this period hypothesised its existence because of the effects it has on surrounding cosmological structures. What they don't know of course, and I don't mention this in my lectures, is that dark energy exists out of sync with normal space-time."

"Lectures?"

"Yes. I'm a lecturer now. I give lectures." He waved his hand around his office.

"You're teaching?" she said, sounding bemused. "That's not very you." She stepped a little away from him.

"No, it's very _you_. Anyway, dark energy, big lump of nothing in my chest, the hole you left behind, out of sync, out of touch and out of reach."

"I'm sorry."

He waved a hand, assuring her he was alright, it was nothing, he always coped. Who was he kidding? His soul seemed bare, his hearts aching and raw, without her.

"At first I remembered your name, and the things we did together, but not how you looked, or the way you smiled, or the things you said to me." He looked at her, taking her in, now that he could. Drinking up the vision. "I always remembered how you made me feel, though," he said. "I never forgot that." He forced a smile. "Even when I couldn't remember a thing about you, what you taught me never left. But proper memories started seeping back into my mind after I saw your name at . . ." He glanced guiltily up at her and paused.

"Saw my name where?"

He supposed he should hardly be proud that he'd left a lethal portal to every-when in a British high school, with only a bunch of teenagers and an amoral, trigger-happy enslaved Quill to guard it. But he couldn't be everywhere at once. And this way they would grow, and learn. He scratched his head, and sighed. Right, keep telling yourself that, Doctor Idiot. Say it often enough and it might even start to sound reasonable. He doubted Clara would see it quite like that, though.

She stared at him, her eyes burning him, even now.

"At Coal Hill, he finally said. "There's a memorial on the wall. You and Danny are up there. I saw your name, and after that I'd get memories seeping back, past the neural block. Certain things trigger particular memories, but it all got muddled. So, for example I remember our trip to the Orient Express. I remembered the Trap Street before I remembered meeting Ashildr. That was rather odd." He frowned. "Of course, I don't know how much more there is to uncover. It never was going to work fully on me. You know how big my brain is, right?"

Clara laughed. "Scary handsome genius from space?"

"Good, glad you remembered that." He squinted at her, a grin forming again at the side of his lips.

"I don't even want to _know_ what you were doing at Coal Hill, do I?" she said.

"Perhaps not."

She nodded, Clara, the image of Clara. He wondered if he reached out, could he touch her? Get close enough to smell the hint of apple he always noticed of her shampoo? If he chose to, could he kiss her right now? If she was inside his head, where would the harm be? Or would it just be totally weird and disrespecting her memory? He didn't have an answer to that one.

"Go on then, how much of me—the real me, the me _not_ inside your head, do you remember?"

He sighed, and lowered his eyes, because the pain of remembering still hurt, and seeing her like this somehow made it better and worse at the same time. "Like I said, it was feelings at first. Your kindness. Your compassion. It's like you left me with lessons. I always hated goodbyes. I'd sneak away or disappear, because it hurt too much to stop and look back." He looked up again, compelled to meet her eyes, despite the sting in his chest. Just looking at her soothed him, somehow. "Clara, you made me see that every moment is precious. That it's wrong to waste the ones we have running away. When it came to saying goodbye to River, I didn't run, and I didn't cheat. You would have been proud of me. I gave her what she needed. The ending she deserved. Then I had to move on. You gave me that."

Clara looked up at him with those brown eyes, pulling at his soul. "Do you ever think of looking for me?" she whispered.

"I think about it all the time. But this is right. I accept it. I broke the laws of time for you, Clara. Not bent, not cheated, didn't just press the reset button. I deliberately changed history for you. I went too far. It had to stop."

"I know," she said. "We became the hybrid."

They stared silently at one another for a long moment that stretched out into eternity. Then her face wrinkled into a frown and she stepped past him, towards a spot in the air just in front of the TARDIS door, right by the white sign, hovering in front of the word 'assistance.'

"What's this?" Clara said, poking her finger at but just stopping short of the glimmering shape.

He frowned and grabbed one of the sonic screwdrivers from the pot on his desk. "Well, that is a very good question."

"I'm good at those. Do you have a very good answer?"

"That depends on your point of view."

"Oh?"

He looked up. "What do you think it is?"

Clara folded her arms. "Since I'm apparently a construct inside your head. I know what you know."

"Well I _don't_ know."

"Then by definition I don't know either. You can be a bit thick sometimes."

He frowned. This was odd. The sparkling, shimmering speck was reading as there and not there, as if it were flicking between dimensions at an incredible rate.

"It's not showing up on any of the usual frequencies." He poked a finger towards the shimmering spot. It was no bigger than his fingernail. "What are you?" he asked.

Clara stood next to him, and peered at it too. He flickered a grin, and raised an eyebrow. "A mystery! If you are a construct of my mind, then is this one too? Or is this actually here?"

"Is what here? And who were you talking to?" Nardole appeared in the doorway, his expression more concerned than when he'd left.

The Doctor straightened himself up quickly, glancing around. Clara was gone. The shimmering speck was gone. He swiped the sonic screwdriver behind his back. "Nothing. No one." He squinted at Nardole, who seemed a little pale. "What have you been up to?"

"I've been doing what _you_ should have been doing. Guarding the vault. And let me tell you, Sir, it's not a happy situation."

"That's nothing new." The Doctor waved his hand. He'd spent fifty years of his lives conforming to his oath, word for word. Nothing terrible had happened yet. It wasn't like he wasn't taking it seriously. But a man needs room to breathe. To run a little. Really, how could a few quick trips hurt?

#

Clara Oswald sneaked a guilty look over at her friend, who had reminded her for the fourth time just how cold it was. They had traveled by bone-shaking carriage from the Home Counties, after deciding that even the remarkable ability of Londoners to ignore the unusual probably wouldn't extend to landing an American Diner next to the Thames.

"I rather hoped never to return to this deplorable, backward age."

"If you didn't want to be reminded of anything, you shouldn't have looked it up in your diaries." Clara said.

Ashildr scowled. "I wanted to be sure I wasn't going to bump into myself. I still think it's a terrible idea."

"Look, I just want to—"

"I know, you just want to check he hasn't disrupted the space-time continuum," Ashildr mocked. "You're not fooling me, Clara. You just like being where he was."

Clara sighed. She couldn't explain it. Something was tugging her, pulling her towards the spots he'd just been. This wasn't like those early days of missing him so desperately, feeling angry and lost, or the time that came after when she just felt resignation and acceptance creeping in. The that feeling faded too, and she started to remember the times they'd shared with affection. No, this was different. Something was calling her. Demanding her attention. She felt it deep in her bones, and at the bottom of her frozen heart.

They alighted from the carriage, and made their way along the Thames. Clara stopped at a pile of antique-looking diving equipment, and picked up a yellow helmet.

"Anyone using _that_ must have been out of their minds," Ashildr noted coolly. Clara couldn't help but agree. She smothered a grin. _How very Doctor-y_

She put the helmet down among the pipes and gloves, and they wandered further along the bank, and then up to the streets. Ashildr paused to talk to a raggedy child chattering excitedly to another boy. Clara didn't stop, though. She found the spot she had been looking for, in front of a blue door. A square of depressed snow. She crouched down. There, just above the snow, was a tiny glimmering crack, about the size of her fingernail. It shimmered and moved a little, and then dived down into the snow. In its place, sat a small, black stone. Blacker than coal, smoother than the cut opals she seen in jewelers shops, and no bigger than her thumbnail. It hummed gently in her hand when she picked it up.

"What's that?" Ashildr asked.

"Nothing." Clara clenched her fist around the gem.

Ashildr squinted at her, and then shrugged. "Well, he's been at it again. Apparently one of these street-urchins has mysteriously discovered he's the long lost heir to a fortune, after the notoriously unpleasant mill owner met with a tragic accident."

Clara grinned. "Sounds about right." She took Ashildr's arm. "Anything you want to see while we're here?"

"We could get a drink. For old times sake," Ashildr said. "I do remember a rather entertaining establishment on the South Bank. . ."

Clara took Ashildr's arm. The stone hummed in her pocket. She wrapped her fingers around it tightly, and felt the hum run up her arms. "Lead on," she said, with a smile creeping over her lips, and a warm glow spreading to her chest.

#

Unseen by Ashildr and Clara, a black bird perched on the wall and watched them walk away. It flapped its wings, once, twice, and took off towards the spot where Clara had crouched moments before. The dancing speck of light appeared again over the spot where the TARDIS had stood. The bird flew straight towards it, slicing silently through the icy air. The glimmering speck flashed large for a moment, and then both it and the bird were gone.


	4. Chapter Knock, Knock

The Doctor dumped the empty food cartons in a wheelie bin outside the basement, and decided to head back to the TARDIS. He paused when he reached his old oak desk. Nardole would be inside the time machine, and he really didn't fancy another lecture from him. He sat in his chair for a moment instead, a maudlin mood descending on him. He picked up the picture of Susan.

"What would you think of it all, eh?" he said, his heart heavy. He'd placed Susan's picture there the day he'd taken the oath, to remind him of the things that mattered. Hold himself to account. But the side effect of that was that he found himself wondering, sometimes, when he looked at her picture, where she was. If she was happy. If she'd lived a good life. Sometimes his hearts ached and he longed to visit. Run around a garden with a great grandchild under each arm, perhaps. Then he reminded himself that Susan and any family she had were better off without his trail of destruction anywhere near them. Nurse Joan Redfern had asked him, years ago, when he'd thought he could outwit the Family of Blood by hiding in a sleepy English village, "If you had not come here, would anyone have died?" He closed his eyes and tried to block out the screams echoing through his mind.

"Don't torture yourself. No one died today." A comforting voice, like a gentle song, whispering to his hearts. Clara.

"The Landlord and his mother did. But he had no right to preserve one life at the cost of others," he said.

"You understood how he felt, though?" Clara said. "That's why you were kind."

He opened his eyes, and there she was, standing in his office.

"He destroyed lives because he couldn't let go. I can't feel too sorry for him."

"Oh, so you've never broken the rules to save someone you care for, then?"

He didn't have an answer for that one. He dragged a hand through his hair.

"And why are you spending so much time in that vault?" she persisted.

"Clara, when you've lost as much as I have, you learn to find a way hang on to what you do have. Even if that thing is . . . _problematic_."

" _Problematic_. . . That's an interesting way to describe—"

"I don't want to talk about it!" He got up and paced around the room. "Look, this is my subconscious. I should get some say in what goes on here!"

"Do you actually know how subconscious works?" Clara said, with a dry edge to her voice. She sighed, quite loudly and theatrically. "You never were any good at facing the truth."

"You were worse!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"Yes, I was," she admitted. "I suppose we deserved each other."

"Exactly," he said. This little visitation from Clara was hitting a bit too close to home. Perhaps it was indigestion from the extra-hot jalapenos frying his neurones, making her apparition more fiery than usual.

Her voice softened. "You never told me, why you forgave me for what I did that day. Throwing the TARDIS keys away, I mean."

They stood in silence for a moment. He pictured her, distraught after Danny's death, throwing the keys into the volcano. There had been something hypnotic about her rage, all that love, all that pain and anger. Something in the dark corner of his soul had prodded him to discover just how far she would go. Clara Oswald went all the way.

He could have told her the sleep patch she thought she'd slapped on him hadn't worked, of course he could. He should have stopped her sooner, it would have been kinder. Sometimes, he wondered if he hadn't stopped her because a part of him was punishing her for loving Danny instead of him. Reflecting on that didn't make him feel particularly good about himself either. "I tried to tell you. I said—"

"Ah, your famous riddles. ' _Do you think I care for you so little betraying me would make a difference_?'" Clara quoted his words precisely.

He'd obviously left an impression, and oddly, that pleased him. "I was actually rather proud of that one."

She laughed. "Yeah, it was memorable," she looked up at him, rather coyly, he thought. Certainly more coyly than was necessary for a figment of his subconscious mind.

"I've often wondered exactly what you meant," she said, fingering a black pendant she wore around her neck. He hadn't noticed it before. Funny the things his fevered brain conjured up.

"It meant I would forgive you anything," he said. She looked up at him, and her soft smile made his heart race, faster than it had any business racing. She was in his head, yet she seemed so real. She was so close she made the hairs on the back of his arm stand up.

Her eyes changed and became suddenly sad. "I don't think it's healthy, to be prepared to forgive someone anything."

He sighed. "Probably not. I think maybe that's the point. I'm not sure the universe is ready for the Doctor in—" He paused. His instinct was to move slightly away from her, but his feet stayed stubbornly rooted to the spot. Was he really going to say it? Was he actually prepared to admit he was in love, even to a construct of his labyrinthine mind? Love makes you run faster, jump higher, push harder, and that's right and it's good. But unconditional love, love without borders or boundaries can push you too far. Look what happened.

She moved closer to him. He could feel her presence in his personal space as clearly as he felt Bill standing next to him earlier today. But this was different. His grandfatherly affection for Bill was wonderful and brought him the adventures and excitement he couldn't really live without, unrepentant adrenaline junkie that he was. But this wasn't the same at all. Heat rose around his neck, making him roll his shoulders and pull at his collar. This was slightly ridiculous, he realised. He was a two thousand year old Time Lord, not an adolescent Earth boy with a crush. So why was he shifting from foot to foot like a nervy teenager?

When she moved closer and placed her hand on his chest, he closed his eyes. Her touch was exquisite agony; all he ever wanted and everything he feared.

"I like your jumper," she said. "Very you."

"Clara," he murmured. He could find no other word, in a universe of a billion languages, and with the songs of a million poets to choose from, the only word he could utter was her name. "Clara."

"It's okay," she whispered in his ear.

This was Clara, always trying to save him, even now. But it wasn't okay. It was very far from okay. There were too many holes in his memory, still. He knew she told him something very important in the cloisters. So many memories of her had come back over the years. Why not that one? He guessed the answer: because the universe is not kind, and does not care for the fate of hearts who should have known better.

"I don't know what to say, Clara. You know I'm awful at this stuff."

"We could try being honest with one another."

"That's a terrible idea," he said. "I don't think that's advisable at all," he said it lightly, as if he was joking, but fear gripped him.

"Go on," she encouraged, "I'll go first. I've often want to. . ." She paused, as if she'd suddenly thought better of it.

He felt disinclined to let her off the hook, though. Just like he didn't stop her on the edge of the volcano, when he knew he should, he pressed her to answer. "Wanted to what?"

"It's silly. You'll laugh."

"Try me. I can't actually promise not to laugh, but I'll make a serious effort not to." He pulled a straight face.

"Well, I often wanted to touch your hair. I never dared ask, though."

He burst out in a laugh, in spite of himself. "My hair has a life of its own. Sometimes I wonder if it's approaching sentience. You'd probably need a permit," he quipped.

"Okay, so floof petting is out, I guess." She took a step back from him, looking a little wary. He realised too late that he'd missed the perfect chance to let her get close to him. What a fool. But, if she was a construct of his mind, did it even matter? And why was he feeling so damn flushed, like he wanted to reach out and touch her, just to see if he could. To run his fingers through _her_ hair. Maybe if he gave into the feeling, he would get this out of his system once and for all.

He took a cleansing breath, told himself this was his own private mind palace, and he could do what he liked. He took her hand. She looked up, surprised. He felt a shock run through him. She felt as real as anything ever had. This experience, whatever it was, clearly involved some kind of tactile hallucinatory component. _One hell of a jalapeno_. Still, no harm, no foul, he told himself. He raised her hand so that she could touch his hair. Smiling, beaming even, she let him guide her hand.

"It's really soft," she whispered, so close he almost stopped breathing. He immediately started to think this was a mistake. Far from getting anything out of his system, now he wanted to pull her closer. He ghosted his fingers over her hair. She seemed so very real, hauntingly beautiful. He could hardly stand it.

"Clara," he whispered. "I've missed you."

Tears welled in her eyes. "This feels so real."

He wiped a tear away with his thumb. "I know." He pulled her into a full hug, holding her close. This was almost unbearable.

"What did you tell me, in the cloisters?" he asked her. "I need to know."

Something hard and cold pressed against his chest. He shifted back from Clara, just enough to see the pendant she wore around her neck. When he touched it a thrum vibrated along his fingers. Why on Earth would he hallucinate something like this? He'd enjoyed these moments with Clara, thought them harmless constructions of his mind. Now he wasn't so sure.

"What's this?" he held the dark, shining gem between his fingers. It was no bigger than his thumb nail, but he could feel power coursing through it.

Clara looked down at her chest. "That's. . ." She frowned. "I'm not sure what it is." Then her eyes widened. She took a sharp step back from the Doctor as gem started to fizz with a silvery light. A stream of bright particles curled around the black gem, and then whirled outwards. Spinning faster and faster in the air, until they became a solid mass.

"What is that? What's happening?" Clara asked.

The Doctor grabbed a screwdriver from the pot on his desk and scanned the glimmering, irregular shape. It expanded, and then steadied at about the size of his fist. "It's the same as last time. A quantum tear oscillating between dimensions. Here and not here." This really was fascinating. Like nothing he'd seen before. He turned the sonic device toward the gem on the chain around Clara's neck.

"Ahem. Are you scanning my chest?"

The Doctor flushed. "No, of course not. I'm scanning the gem that _happens_ to be positioned on your chest."

"Oh. Because I wouldn't object. To you scanning my chest."

He glanced up, and filed that thought under _things my subconscious wants Clara to say_ and tapped the side of the screwdriver. He still wasn't sure if the quantum tear was in his mind or happening in the real world. The two things seemed to be connected somehow. He briefly considered calling Nardole for a second opinion, but dismissed that idea almost instantly. Maybe he could call Bill. But she'd already had a busy night.

He had a suspicion what the gem might be, or represent at least. He'd have to cross reference it with the TARDIS databank to be sure, but it looked very much like it was a fragment of dark star.

"Clara, tell me something I don't know."

"What?"

"I think you're in my head. But are you? How can I touch you? If you tell me something I don't already know, then you can't just be a construct of my own imagination."

Clara tried to move towards him, around the swirling mass of silver specks, but it shifted as she did. "Doctor!" she called, her eyes wide. His hearts raced and pounded to the tune of her cries. Light exploded around him, filled his vision, his senses and his mind.

Then he was sitting at his desk with the picture of Susan in his hands. The room was silent. No lights, no quantum tears, no Clara. He put the picture down and rubbed his eyes. He was getting old. Maybe he was losing his mind. Perhaps it really would be time for bed soon.

#

Clara Oswald and Ashildr had left the Diner in a park and fly zone, hopped on a connecting air rail carriage, and had a wonderful day at the 412th Anti-Grav Olympics on New Earth. Now, they were returning with the crowds, happily mingling with all manner of life forms. Clara loved this, mixing with the citizens of the cosmos, seeing wonders she never imagined. It took her mind to a happier place. One that made sense.

Something caught her eye in the crowd. Something dark, flitting on the edge of her vision. Then it vanished.

They got off the air rail and walked through the shining towers of New Earth. She'd seen the history of New Earth in the Diner's data banks: it didn't end particularly well. But even if a story has a sad ending, she told herself, you could still enjoy the book.

That strange blackness flashed across her vision again.

"Ashildr. . ." The hairs on the back of her neck pricked up. "I've got a bad feeling about—" Feathers as dark as night. A whoosh of air. A glimmer of claws. Clara didn't wait to see more. "Run!" She grabbed Ashildr's hand and dragged her off the main walkways and into a narrow alley of small shops selling trinkets old and new. One of the shops, shrouded in darkness inside, had a 'closed' sign on the door. They dived into the doorway.

"What is it?"

"I don't know! But it's freaking me right out. Something with claws and feathers. I don't want to stay here and find out!"

"I didn't see anything." Ashildr squinted at Clara. "Are you seeing things again?"

"No! That was ages ago. It hasn't happened again." Clara lied.

Ashildr wiggled her hand free from hers. "Just stop. We've been through this. You promised to tell me if—"

"Bloody hell, Ashildr. Don't you trust me any more? I hate birds. You should know why!"

"No need to throw that back at me again!"

Clara took a step away from Ashildr, ready to run if the feathery black mass showed up again, but nothing appeared. She tried to calm herself down. She didn't want to fight with Ashildr, but she had no intention of telling her the whole truth. Either something very strange had been happening over the last few weeks, or she was losing her mind. She wouldn't like to put money on which. She'd find herself staring into space, having conversations with _him_ in her head. Not that she minded. But it had disturbed Ashildr when she told her about it the first time it happened. She'd kept it to herself after that. But it was happening more often.

But, here and now, she was _sure_ she'd seen the bird. She felt the flap of its wings disturb the air, seen its claws glinting.

Clara lifted up her hair and turned around. "Has it changed? The tattoo?" she asked, hoping against hope that her last heart beat wasn't over. Not yet. She still had things to do. Places to see. People to meet. And she couldn't give up hope that she would see the Doctor again, one more time, for real.

Ashildr placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "It's just the same. I don't think the Trap Street is calling time on you just yet."

"Okay." Clara said, relieved.

Ashildr touched the silver chain at the back of her neck. "Where did you get this? I've never noticed you wearing a necklace before, and that chain, well it's glowing."

"Is it?" Clara let her hair drop to cover the chain and the tattoo. She pulled the chain and pendant out from under her shirt. "No it isn't."

"Oh, it's stopped now. Or maybe it was a trick of the light." Ashildr said, in a tone that told Clara she thought it was nothing of the sort. "Where did you get it?"

"This? I found it in one of the wardrobe rooms," Clara said. It was partly true. She'd found the chain in a silver jewelery box, and hung the gem she'd found in the snow back in 1814 on it. Right or wrong, it reminded her of the Doctor and she wanted to keep it. After all this time of staying away, she'd earned a little indulgence, hadn't she? Where was the harm? Ashildr probably wouldn't see it like that, though. She shoved the black pendant back under her shirt.

Clara poked her head out of the shop doorway. "No sign of anything now. Perhaps I did imagine it," she didn't believe that anymore than she imagined Ashildr believed her about the necklace. This was the way they operated sometimes, each clinging to a lie, because it was easier than the truth. Story of her life, really.

Ashildr squeezed her hand. It was an unspoken understanding between them, a way of consoling each other, of finding a way to live well with what they were. _He made us both. What we do with that is up to us._

Clara smiled back, and they continued down the street back to the Diner.

#

A cloaked figure inside the shop watched Clara and Ashildr leave. As it moved, the silver speckles on its shimmering cloak left trails in the darkness. The First was patient and slow to anger. Eternity was a blink of an eye to one existing outside time and space, beyond the knowledge even of the Time Lords, who arrogantly thought themselves masters of all. But at least the Time Lords accepted the rules, for the most part. They understood that there were some things that should be immutable. Some points fixed, some things that should not be overwritten. Oh, they were arrogant, and liked to think there were no mysteries they couldn't solve. They even tried to put a name to something unnameable. The Hybrid, they called it. They did not understand at all. Well, the First had tolerated the Time Lords like the petulant children they were, until this one kept bringing himself to its attention. The Doctor's lifespan was a blink of an eye to the First, but like a repeating tick he continued to make himself felt. This last incarnation was more troublesome than most. Something had to be done.

The darkness stirred, air ruffled. Two eyes like coals. Shining claws set themselves down on a counter beside the First.

"Is the trap set?" the First whispered into the darkness.

"The storm is gathering. The pieces remain out of alignment, however."

"You are under contract. Get it done."

"Synchronicity on this scale is difficult to achieve—" the Small Darkness protested.

"Then do not let me keep you from your work." The First spun itself around, its cloak becoming a vortex of light, and then it vanished.


	5. Chapter 5: Oxygen

Clara Oswald stood with her hand to her head, rubbing her temple. She'd been staring at the screen in the secondary console room for hours now. She went off in search of a chair, dragged it along the corridor, only to find the Diner had smugly put one right next to her workstation.

"Thanks a bunch," she muttered, leaving the new chair by the door.

Clara resumed her trudge through the Diner's data-core. She didn't know if it would do any good. Just because she'd hallucinated — or perhaps dreamed — the Doctor had told her the necklace she wore around her neck was a fragment of Dark Star, that didn't mean it actually _was_. And most of the references to Dark Stars were hidden deep in archaic texts or featured in complicated myths and stories. She flicked impatiently through text after text. Ashildr would be wondering what she'd been up to pretty soon, and that might easily spark another row.

According to one book, Dark Stars were the source of all dark energy and dark matter in the universe. At some point, when the universe was very hot, and very young, before gravity, before the Higgs field got to work endowing particles with mass, Dark Stars formed.

So far, so good. Clara flicked through a dozen texts saying the same thing, before she found anything else interesting.

An ancient story told that as the universe cooled, a primal force came into being: the embodiment of time itself. It sought to impose order on the chaos, so it spat out the laws of physics, and with a swish of its cloak defined the parameters of time and space. When this was done it looked on, and would have been satisfied with its first day's work, but for one thing.

Dark Stars: devoid of mass, not interacting with anything else, not even in the same chronological frame of reference as the rest of the universe, yet stubbornly existing all the same. Dark Stars were an abomination to the shadowy creature known as the First. It was afraid of the Dark Star's paradoxical nature, there but not there, always just beyond its grasp. The First became angry. With a flick of its cloak it smothered the Dark Stars, one by one.

But, the First's own laws decreed nothing could be truly created or destroyed, only changed. In a fury it scattered the Dark Star's remains, leaving behind three things; dark matter, dark energy, and the solid core. It was this solid core, stubbornly remaining after the cataclysmic obliteration, that interested Clara. Denser than azbantium, more powerful than a black hole, some of it became dark star alloy. If you could get hold of that, it was said to be strong enough to pierce a Dalek's case.

Clara harrumphed. "Well, I guess we know _that's_ true," she said aloud, rubbing the back of her neck, thinking of pointy sticks and Dalek sewers that stank of decay and death. If Clara never saw that warbling psychopath Missy again, it would be too soon.

Suppressing a shudder, Clara returned to reading. The other thing that remained along with the alloy, the book said, was the star's heart. Was that what she had around her neck right now? The heart of a Dark Star? She fingered the shiny black gem. It seemed hot and cold, tingling with energy when she touched it, so volatile she dare not let it rest against her skin too long. It became peaceful when it was tucked away between her jumper and shirt, exposed to neither her skin or light.

She was about to close down the reader when something else caught her eye. The Diner had flashed up another book. "The Tale of the Magic Haddock." She frowned, tapped the console. "Are you losing the plot, dear? What has this got to do with — Oh. Is this one of those cautionary tales? Be careful what you wish for and all that?" Clara stared hard at the page. It wasn't a digital file like the other books had been, but a scanned copy of a real children's book, replete with colourful pictures of the multi-coloured and bizarrely vocal haddock, dog-eared pages with notes scrawled in the margin. "Zoom in," she told the Diner. "Right there." In the corner of the page, in the Doctor's swirly, almost illegible hand writing was a message and a set of coordinates.

The message said: _Hold me in your hands and look into my eyes. Take my hearts and hold them close._

"Can you print that?" Clara grabbed a sheet of paper the console helpfully produced. She shoved it in her pocket before going to find Ashildr.

#

"Where have you been?" Ashildr looked less than pleased when she found Clara in the main console room. They had agreed to meet long before now.

Clara considered for a moment, and then decided that a half-truth was better than no truth. "I've been doing some research. Into Dark Stars. Do you know anything about them?"

Ashildr looked at her coolly, folding her arms. Then she did an odd thing. She started to wobble. Then she began to blur, her face losing coherence.

"Ashildr, are you okay?" Clara's voice echoed in her own ears, like she was listening underwater. The whole world became fuzzy at the edges, not just Ashildr.

Her friend's voice took on a swimmy, slowed-down tone. "Clara, what's wrong?"

"I'm fine," Clara's own voice drawled out, like a recording played at half speed. "I think I just need to lie down." She fought to stay on her feet, but the whole room was spinning mercilessly. Then Clara felt herself slipping. This was an hallucination, or a waking dream, she thought as she slipped slowly to the floor. Trouble was, although she knew it probably wasn't right, and it would definitely lead to no good, she _liked_ it. Seeing him again? How could she say no to that, even if it was all inside her head?

Clara felt her heart lift. This was the best part: when this happened she could feel. Her body was no longer enslaved to the chrono-lock. Her heart raced, her breath caught, and butterflies flipped over in her stomach in an intoxicating rush of sensations. For an hallucination, she decided, it was a bloody good one. He was sitting at his desk, wearing the sunglasses, even though he was indoors.

He stood up, and hugged her, a bit awkwardly, breathing hard into her neck. "Clara," he said, quietly. "I hoped you'd come back."

"Opmf," Clara gasped. "It's good to see you too. You feel pretty solid for an hallucination."

"Agreed. Perhaps it's some kind of subconscious reckoning." He sat down again. "Has it happened before, for you?"

"Yes, four times now," she said, feeling rocked to her core, overwhelmed by him being so close.

He nodded. "That's right. Same for me. And last time a quantum crack formed from the energy streaming from your necklace." He waved a hand, vaguely in her direction.

Clara stared at him. He was usually so full of nervous energy. Pacing around, fiddling with this and that. She didn't think she'd seen him stay still for this long, in well, ever.

She perched on the side of his desk. "Doctor, what's happening?" When she'd thought this was just a dream or figment of her mind, it had seemed fun. But she had just passed out on the floor of the Diner. Thank god Ashildr was their to take care of her, but if this sort of thing was going to start happening at random, would it be safe to go anywhere alone? She couldn't go popping off into the Doctor's head at random. It wasn't safe.

"I wish I knew," he said.

"You left me a cryptic message. In a kid's book," she prompted. The message had said to look into his eyes and hold his hearts. What the hell was that supposed to mean? If it was some sort of romantic overture, then why didn't he make the first move?

He ran his hands through his hair. "I was being clever. I wrote that just after we last 'met'. It was supposed to send you to … Well. You got the message. But anyway, don't take it literally. You'll see when you get to the coordinates."

"Yes. Those coordinates are a museum. I looked them up."

He still had not moved from the chair, but his long fingers were drumming on the desk. "Yes. Good. Perhaps you should go."

"Doctor, is something wrong?"

"Why would anything be wrong? I'm fine. I'm always fine."

The message had asked her to look into his eyes. And he was wearing those glasses in doors. She could see by his face he wasn't fine. She knew by the furrow of his brow and the overconfident blather. He could never hide the weariness in his eyes from her. She stood by him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her heart started to pulse faster, and the smell of him, stardust, adventure, and the faintest hint of cologne she couldn't place lingered in her nose.

He put a hand over hers, and patted it, clumsily. "I'm fine, Clara, really. Don't worry."

"Doctor, please." Clara bit the inside of her cheek. Something was terribly wrong. She touched his face. He brought his own hand up to hers.

"Your note said, 'Hold me in your hands and look into my eyes. Take my hearts and hold them close'."

"Clara," he whispered. "I told you, that was me being an obscure fool. I was sending you on a mission. I didn't mean—"

Clara gently took off the glasses. His eyes were their usual blue-grey, but they were also oddly vacant. They didn't meet hers.

"Clara, it's okay. I can't see, but I'm okay."

He didn't fool her. "Doctor, it's me. After everything we've been through together, you don't have to be brash and brave with me." She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and drew him towards her. She felt him breathing into her chest, and was conscious of the rise and fall between them, his jerky breaths as he contained his emotions. She wished he would let go, and just feel.

"What happened?" She asked, still entwining him in her arms.

"I had to make a choice. To save the life of someone I care about."

"Oh, Doctor. You wonderful, beautiful fool." Clara's throat caught, her own breath becoming ragged and broken. "Of course you had to. Duty of care." This Doctor, he had the biggest heart she'd ever known. Oh, he tried to hide it under brusqueness. He focused on saving who he could so clinically that sometimes it made him seem cold and uncaring. Clara knew better, though. If he stopped for one moment to mourn those he couldn't save, his sorrow and rage might overwhelm him. And then more people would die. So he moved on.

"Duty of care. It means I protect the people I bring out here. I make you a citizen of the cosmos, it's my job to keep you safe."

"I know, I know." _Sometimes people say things like that instead of saying the things they actually mean_. "This isn't permanent, right? You can fix it." She let her fingers play through his hair, hoping the answer would be _yes, of course, you know me. I can fix anything._

He shook his head. His hands sought hers, still holding her close. "You should know better than anyone, that's not always true."

"Don't give up! Can't you use regeneration energy? To renew the damage?"

The Doctor sighed. "I thought of that. But if I trigger that process in my optic nerves, it could start a neural cascade and begin a full regeneration. Then I would be able to see, but I'd be someone else. I joked that death was like man flu, but it's more than that. This me would be gone. It's like death."

"Live blind or risk losing yourself," Clara whispered. What a terrible choice.

"Oh, Clara, I always hoped I'd see your smile, one last time. Before the end. But it's okay. I'll adjust. I'm not the first person to lose his sight." He held onto her, as if touch had become a new channel for him, now his visual capabilities were gone.

Clara made a small gasp, her heart almost breaking. She was standing between his legs as he sat, as close to him now as she had ever been. But something didn't quite add up.

"Doctor," she said. "We're in some kind of shared psychological state, right? I mean I'm in the Diner, on the floor of the console room right now. So I'm in your head."

"Or I'm in yours. I still don't know how—"

"Yet we can interact in a remarkably physical way," she said. "But the brain operates with images. Something is creating what I see now, and it isn't the eyes that are in my head on the floor in the Diner."

"Yes," he said, thinking that through.

"You might be blind in the real world. But why are you blind in your own subconscious?"

"Good point. But, I still can't see."

"Okay. But what if that's just because that's what you _expect_ to happen."

"I'm transferring my physiological state into my psyche? My expectations shape my experience."

It made sense. A human brain was a powerful, mysterious force; expectations did shape experience, she knew this. Teaching 101. Expect a child to misbehave, always treat them like a naughty kid, and hey presto, you've fed into their expectations and given them a grand opening to misbehave. But the reverse is also true. Raise expectations, raise standards, raise results.

Let's put it to the test, Clara decided. "Doctor, look at me."

He turned his unseeing eyes towards her.

"You can feel me, can't you? Your tactile senses are involved in this, whatever it is," she said.

"Oh yes, I can definitely feel you," he said, with a breathless tone. His hands tightened slightly around her waist. "You're breathing. Your heart is beating."

With her heart racing at what she was about to do, she bent in and brushed her lips lightly to his. "Exactly. If you can feel this, then you can see me, too."

She intended the kiss to be fleeting, just enough to help him believe he could, in this reality at least, see. But he held her, seeming unable to let her go, his lips tenderly against hers. She realised just how much she longed to kiss him, really kiss him. But this wasn't about what she wanted. It was about what he needed.

She moved back just a little. "Doctor," she whispered, "Open your eyes."

He did open his eyes, looked up into hers, and then he smiled. "I think you just healed me with a kiss," he said.

Clara looked into those stormy grey eyes, and wished heartily it would be so easy in real life. But this was something, wasn't it?

He seemed energised, now, but disinclined to let her go. He looked at her eyes, taking in her face, her expression, and seemed to lose himself. "That smile," he said at last. "How could I ever have forgotten it?"

"I've missed you. So much." She looked up and into his eyes, at his face, so full of longing. Was it really the right thing for them to be apart? Would the universe really crack in two because they drove each other to extremes? It had seemed to make sense at the time, but as the years stretched on it got harder to bear. She'd almost lost hope of ever seeing him again, and fallen into a quagmire of regrets. They had been so right together. So alike. Made for one another. And they missed the chance they had of being together, really together. For a long moment she thought he was going to kiss her, his eyes roved around her face, and her heart rate spiked.

But then he stood up and whirled her around, right off her feet, in a spinning hug that took her breath away. "You, are very clever," he said.

"I learned from the best."

He put her gently down, and then tore his eyes away from hers. "So, the problem at hand?"

Clara took a breath to compose herself, and then lifted the necklace from under her jumper. "This. I found it in Victorian London, in the spot where the TARDIS had been parked."

He raised an eyebrow. "You've been following me?"

Clara felt herself blush. "Sometimes. Occasionally. Not very often."

He grinned, as if the idea pleased him immensely. "It's a small universe."

"Yes, well, I put it on a chain, because, well, reasons," she felt herself flushing even redder, as if she'd been caught out in a schoolgirl crush, "and now if I take it off, or touch it for too long, or expose it to light, it starts to do that swirly vortex thing that happened before. You called it a quantum crack. The only time it's quiet is if I wear it, but keep it away from light and my skin."

"Ah, an eternity close to your heart, but never quite there? I know how it feels," he said, examining it closely.

Clara filed that thought away for future reference, but right then the pendent started to shimmer. "Better tuck it away. We don't want to bust any holes in the universe."

He slipped the pendant back under her jumper. "It must make showering a bit difficult."

"Just a bit. If it _is_ a fragment of Dark Star, like you said …"

"Oh, I've no doubt that it is."

"What am I going to do?"

The Doctor was off, pacing around his office. Then he stood in front of her, looking intently. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her again.

Instead, he grabbed her hand, and pulled her towards the TARDIS, all the while firing off at a frenetic rate. "Dark Stars. The oldest and strangest things in the universe. The source of the original time crystals. A crystal capable of breaking time translation symmetry, preventing the loss of quantum coherence—"

"Woah," Clara held up a hand. "You are not lecturing today. Speak Clara."

He grinned, and said, "The heart of a Dark Star affects the fundamental properties of the universe …" He paused and dashed around the console, leaving her standing in the doorway, soaking up the memory of this place. She hadn't been in here for a hundred years.

"Go on," she said, distractedly.

"Supposedly … No, no, no, even as I'm thinking it, it sounds silly."

"Says the man who claimed the sky is made of lemon drops … "

He looked at her, his eyes as sincere as she'd ever seen them. "I don't want to get your hopes up. But, if we could put the fragments of the heart of a Dark Star together, it would be incredibly powerful."

"How powerful?"

"Powerful enough," he said, "to reverse the effects of the Quantum Shade. And more."

Clara gripped the rail at the side of the console room while she tried to digest that. A hundred years she'd been time-locked, frozen, her body not her own, but some strange, alien suit she was wearing. She'd gotten used to it over time, but she missed feeling. When he'd held her just now, stolen that kiss from her lips a little longer than she'd intended, she felt more alive than she had in a long, long time. Perhaps ever.

"So how do I find more fragments?"

"I left you a clue. That note. Disguised so only you would understand." He grinned, the satisfied grin that he wore when he thought himself particularly clever. "And I'm working on finding more fragments. I'll get a message to you, somehow or other. We can't rely on this happening again. I mean it might, but there's no guarantee."

"I hope it does," Clara said. She picked up a clockwork device from the pilot's chair, and sat down. She looked at what she held in her hand, and laughed. "I see you still have Sammy the clockwork squirrel, then."

"He's not called—"

Clara heard no more of the sentence. The world became a fuzz of white light, gradually coalescing into solid forms.

Ashildr was on her knees at her side, shaking her shoulder. "Clara. Clara."

Clara groaned. "How long was I out?"

"A few seconds. What's that?"

Clara looked down at her hand. Sammy the clockwork squirrel peered up at her with shining black eyes, his tiny paws moving jerkily. Clara felt her own body, locked again, back into its imprisonment between one heartbeat and the last. But now she had a mission. Now she had something to work towards that might make things better, and if the time crystals were powerful enough to break the Quantum Shade's contract, what more might they do? Heal the Doctor? She felt for the sheet of paper in her pocket with his instructions, and she smiled. For the first time in a long, long time, she had hope.


	6. Chapter 6

"So, you promise this is nothing to with the Doctor," Ashildr said, with that haughty look Clara had so little patience for these days.

"Of course it isn't. It's to do with the Quantum Shade. If we can get the fragments of Dark Star together, there's a chance I can get out of the chrono-lock," Clara lied. Her conscience pricked her, just a bit. Just enough to make her lower her eyes and look away. Playing on Ashidlr's guilt over the Trap Street was pretty low. But what other choice did she have? She had a mission now. The fragments of Dark Star could break the Quantum Shade's contract _and more,_ the Doctor had told her. Perhaps it could save his eyesight without risking a full regeneration. Clara shuddered a little at the thought of him being swallowed by the same gold light that had spat him out in front of her eyes all those years ago. She longed to see him in the flesh more time, at least. Was that too much to hope for?

Ashildr noticed the shudder, and perhaps mistook it for nerves. "Are you quite sure about this? It looks damn-near impossible to me," she asked, peering through a skylight into a cavernous space beyond. Her brow creased into a perplexed frown. At least _worried_ was preferable to haughty and cross, which had become Ashildr's default mode when it came to the Doctor.

"Impossible?" Clara said lightly, "That's practically my middle name." Better than that, it was her theme tune. She rolled her shoulders and ran through a mental check of her equipment. High tensile rope, black. A body harness, carefully selected to fit comfortably around her legs and arms, almost invisible against her black clothes. She'd searched out a titanium belay device and carabiners, also in black. The Luthoxian assistant at the deep space extreme sports store had flapped his tentacles at that, asking her in a high-pitched trill if she was planning to rob a bank.

"Not a bank," she'd mumbled, and quickly handed over the credits.

Now, she secured a pouch to the harness, and patted it once to make sure what she needed was still there. Then she slipped on her infrared night vision goggles and made sure they were securely in place.

"Don't worry, Ashildr," she said, squeezing her friends shoulder. "I'll be fine. Just follow the plan."

Ashildr sighed and shot her a sardonic look, but continued to work on the security lock on the skylight. She'd developed quite an expertise at breaking and entering over the millennia. There wasn't a locking device in the universe she couldn't break, given time. "There," she said, as the device succumbed to her repeated scrambling of its codes, and finally clicked open.

Clara gave the magno-clamp a hefty tug, and satisfied it was firm, she grinned. "I'll see you soon," she said, and watched for a moment as Ashildr hurried away across the rooftop. She couldn't see her face in the dark, but she heard her say softly, "Twelve minutes. Don't be late."

Clara sat on the edge of the skylight, the starry sky open and cloudless above her, below her, the second most comprehensive collection of late Arbroathain artifacts in the galaxy, and in her pocket, a set of instructions, scrawled on the back of a page from the _Tale of the Magic Haddock_. The moon cast a white light in a circle below, lighting the museum just enough for Clara to see her target exactly 4.36 meters below. She had it all worked out down to the last detail.

Clara let out a short length of rope and then began her descent. When she was halfway down, she tugged on the ropes to adjust her position so she hung horizontally over the exhibit below. The wide floor of the exhibition hall was covered in red lines; each would trip security alarms if she so much as breathed on them. _Good job I don't need to bother with that, then._ She lengthened the rope, slid smoothly down until she was directly above the exhibit she had come for. It was a statue; about twelve centimeters high, of a squat, minor Arbroathain deity. According to the plaque Clara had read when they visited earlier in the day, she was the Goddess of Eternity. Her legs were crossed and her arms held tight to her body, as if she were guarding secrets she would take to the grave and beyond. In the dark, the statue's eyes glowed a burning red. Clara hadn't seen that in the daylight among the throngs of museum visitors.

She snaked her arm towards the statue. It wasn't in a case, but like all the exhibits, it rested on a pressure sensitive pad, and removing it from its proper place would set off the alarms. Clara hovered above the statue. This was the tricky part. If she got this wrong, the guard drones would be released. She steadied her hands, and got the replacement item she'd brought along out from the pouch clipped to her harness. She weighed it in her hands. It should be a good match. She reached for the statue. In a flash, she had the Goddess in her hands, and Sammy the clockwork squirrel sat in her place.

The Goddess' eyes glowed red, and with a strange, deep thrumming she hadn't noticed before, the whole statue seemed to vibrate. She hurriedly put it in her pouch. She would have to go down now, as the night patrol would becoming across the roof any minute now. The floor in front of her was riddled with security beams, tracing a random zigzag pattern across the floor. Clara eased herself to the ground, placing her feet carefully between the beams. She glanced at her watch. She'd taken four minutes already.

She began to weave her way through the assault course of red lights, first crawling, then twisting her body at sharp, uncomfortable angles. _Not bad for a hundred and thirty_. When she reached the door to the Great Gallery, however, her smugness faded. The beams across this exit were green, not red. She used a tachyon sensor to analyse the makeup of this new beam. It wouldn't just trigger an alarm. It was a high-energy dispatch laser; it would slice off any body part carelessly dragged through it.

This was taking too much time. More than she had counted on. Six minutes left.

"Bloody hell," she muttered. The beams crisscrossed the doors in a repeating X pattern, making triangles at the top and the bottom, and a diamond shape in the middle. She thought at first she would be able to crawl under, but when she ducked to eye level it was clear the bottom triangle was too small, even for her small frame. The only way through would be to take a run and dive headlong through the middle. Cursing, she shed the harness, stuffed the pouch with the statue inside her shirt, and lined herself up.

 _Oh, Doctor_ , she found herself thinking. _If you could see me now._ "Geronimo!" she said, to wind up her courage, then she ran. Clara launched herself through the air, head first, arms stretched out in front. The sensation of flying took her, and for a glorious moment she was suspended between the green lines. Then the ground was rushing up to meet her. She was aware of an acrid, sizzling smell, and then klaxons blaring.

She fell hard against the hard floor, tried to roll but landed awkwardly on a shoulder. She cried out in pain, but forced herself up. _Keep running_. Three minutes. She had to find the exit. And what on Earth was that smell?

Clara ran to the stair well. She had to go up, up a floor to the Great Gallery. An automated voice blared through a PA system. " _Security breach. Drones dispatched. Security breach. Drones dispatched."_ The lights in the building burst on. Dazzled, she threw her hands up to her eyes. She flung off her goggles, they were a hindrance now. Where were the stairs? Images of the security drones, ZX-SecuTech model 3's —she'd done her homework— with their spidery metal legs jittering on the floor, deadly laser beams capable of melting kneecaps, filled her mind. She shrugged the terrifying image off to concentrate on running.

Her feet were silent over the marble steps as she tore up the spiral staircase, but behind her she heard the clickity-clack of metal legs on stone. She swore silently and kept running. As she approached the top, she skidded to a halt. There on the last step sat a security drone, or as it seemed to Clara, an evil, squat metal spider with a laser cannon directed at her. More skittering behind. Going back down would be a mistake.

She dodged the drone's first blast. Searing light cracked into the wall showering her with dust and fragments.

She froze. The metal monstrosity sent out a scanning beam, this time in blue rather than the deadly fiery red.

A tinny voice said, " _Scanning. No motion detected. No life form detected."_

Clara held still, although every instinct screamed she should run. The drone clattered back and forwards, and finally lost interest in her altogether, moving past her and down the stairs.

Clara had no time for relief, she bounded up the last two steps and burst into the Great Gallery. It was a wide open space, with a vaulted ceiling and a wide floor. At one end was a large window.

The automated voice sounded again. " _Lock-down initiated. Lock-down initiated."_

Less than a minute until the rendezvous.

What was the punishment for robbery on Arbroathia? She didn't want to find out. She'd sprinted halfway across the floor before the drones appeared in the security ports at both sides of the hall. Six to the left. More to the right. While she was running she was at least a moving target. They flashed fire bolt after fire bolt as she sprinted across the hall. She yelped, dodged, kept running.

Twenty seconds.

The door to the left of the room burst open. A guard, or a soldier, or a big brute with a bigger gun burst in, aiming his weapon at Clara.

"Freeze!" he yelled. Clara had always wondered if people actually said that. Well, now she knew. She didn't freeze, though. Still dodging, she ran straight for the wide picture window, an expanse of glass overlooking the Arbroathian city-scape.

Clara was fast, but he was faster. The guard grabbed her by the waist. "Well, what have we got here?" His breath was rancid, his stubble sharp against her face. Clara turned her face away.

A drab metal security shutter started to creak slowly down over the window, snuffing out the twinkling lights of the tower blocks and starlight.

Ten seconds.

Clara fumbled for the detonator in her pocket. A small thing, not enough to do much harm, but enough to blow her way out if plan A failed. And plan A, had apparently gone to hell.

The guard laughed, a foul leering laugh. "Think you have something of ours under that pretty little shirt—"

Clara didn't even let him finish that sentence. She brought her foot sharply up and then raked it down his shin. At the same time she jabbed backwards with her elbow. A hundred and thirty years had been plenty long enough to gain a third degree blackbelt in Taekwondo and a credible brown in Venusian Karate. The guard doubled in pain. Clara ran and hurled the detonator at the shutter. Metal and glass shattered outwards, the blast ringing in her ears. A smattering of dust blew back from the window ledge. Clara ploughed through the dusty air, past the remains of the shutter and scrambled onto the narrow window ledge.

The security drones clacked across the stone floor, the guard hollered, energy beams crackled past her head. Clara glanced down. The dim streets far below seemed toy-like, with tiny cars crawling past, and people like dolls moving about below. Where was Ashildr? She should be here by now, hovering right ahead of her, a short step from the window ledge to the Diner. That was the plan. She'd had it all worked out. Clara's thoughts raced. Had something happened to Ashildr on the way back? She'd printed her identity papers. Had she got the coordinates wrong? Or had the Diner gotten in one of those temperamental moods when it went somewhere random instead of where you actually asked?

A voice behind her. "You've got nowhere to go."

"I beg to differ," Clara said, trying to sound surer than she felt. Where the hell was Ashildr?

The guard raised his weapon. "Come in now, and I might not shoot you when I'm done searching you."

"That doesn't sound like a very attractive offer." Clara shifted her weight further along the ledge, keeping her back pressed to the wall.

"It's the only game in town," he sneered.

No Diner, no way back, no options. If she lost the fragments now, she might never get them back. Whatever chance she had to help the Doctor, to help herself, would be lost. She took another glance at the guard's leering grin and his nasty piggy-eyes. The thought of him searching her sent a shudder down her spine.

What would the Doctor do? She smiled then, as she knew deep in her heart, she knew exactly what her Doctor would do. He'd have faith in his friends. He'd do the impossible.

She jumped.

The air rushed around her, tugging her hair, and it was at that point, oddly, she realised it was her hair that had triggered the alarms, the singed ends flapping in the wind as she plunged downwards. _That's okay_ , she told herself. _If Ashildr doesn't show up, split ends will be the least of my worries._

The world rushed up with sickening speed. Would it be easier to close her eyes? Perhaps, but she wouldn't do it. She needed to see to respond, to be able to twist and turn in the air to meet rescue if it came. This was her choice. She'd face this like she faced the raven on the Trap Street. With her eyes wide open. And this time she wouldn't scream.

Cars whizzed by below. People strolled on the walkways, unaware of what was plummeting towards them. That bothered Clara the most, in a terrified, disjointed kind of way. Who would find her body on the stone-cold ground this time?

A gaggle of children passed directly below, perhaps from a birthday party. A girl with flowing blond hair under a red woolen hat looked up at the lady falling from the sky, her young eyes wide and blue, her mouth open in wordless surprise.

"Ashildr!" Clara screamed.

#

Ashildr ran frantically back to the Diner, her chest heaving. Timing was crucial. She had to get the Diner right next to the window ledge where Clara would be waiting. That was the plan Clara had worked out in detail. What _hadn't_ been in the plan was being accosted by patrol officers wanting to see and scan her documents, and taking an abominably long time to do it. Tired as she was of the schemes Clara had been dragging her into lately, and even though she doubted the story about the Dark Stars and the Quantum Shade, she owed it to Clara to try.

As she reached the Diner, Ashildr's breaths came in raspy, hard gulps. With shaking hands she activated a scanner and found Clara's time trace. She scowled. _That_ didn't look good. All her time-lines were converging, leaving a frantic mess of lines on the screen; futures where Clara was smashed to a pulp at the base of the museum, others, where she survived. "Good job it's a _time machine,"_ Ashildr muttered, and started working on the complex dematerialisation sequence.

#

The air around Clara changed, the rush of cold became the ionised crackle of the Diner materialising. She felt the Diner's inertia dampeners grab her. She slowed, but still crashed painfully to the white floor. The cool, tingling sensation under her palms was enough to make her laugh out loud. It was not a laugh of happiness, but the the cracked laugh of someone who finds themselves alive when they should be dead. _That could have been so much worse._ She lay still for a few seconds, picturing the little girl in the red hat. _No dead children today._ She brushed aside another thought, didn't even let them dwell in her rebellious mind for more than a moment: what would have happened if she'd died here today, instead of the Trap Street? Deep down, she didn't believe it would happen. She was still going back to Gallifrey. The long way round.

Clara rolled onto her back, clutching the statue under her shirt. It was fragmented, smashed by the impact on the floor. But that didn't matter: the fragments of Dark Star would have survived.

Ashildr was pale and angry, her voice cold. "I hope whatever you got was worth it."

As her fingers closed around the package, Clara hoped so too.

 **Time Stamp: Two days before the Vatican.**

"Think of it as a trial run," the Doctor said to Nardole. I'm going to get pulled into something or other pretty soon, it always happens. So before then, we take a trial run and I test my ability to get around."

"Hmmm, well the idea does have some merit, sir. I'll pick a nice, quiet location—"

"No need. I've chosen somewhere." The Doctor flipped the dematerialisation switch before Nardole could argue. He sensed the man standing beside him even before the life-sign data flicked up on the inside of his glasses and was fed directly into his cortex.

"A museum?" Nardole said, suspicion plain in his voice.

"What could be safer than a boring old museum?"

#

The curator of the Arbrothain Museum of Antiquities approached the Doctor and Nardole, his footsteps shuffling in a heavy, uneven gait. The Doctor could smell sweat, and the rustling of the man's clothes hinted strongly at more than one set of upper limbs.

The Doctor turned to Nardole. "An anxious Helfovan?"

Nardole whispered back. "Yes, sir. Four arms, one of which is currently wiping the sweat from his forehead."

"I've already spoken to the police," the Helfovan said, his voice tight and strained.

The Doctor flashed the psychic paper towards the sound of the voice.

"Oh. The Ministry of Antiquities? I can assure you, sir, that that museum security foiled this robbery before anything of high value was taken. He moved closer to the Doctor. "The Keflafax Strobe is quite safe."

"I'll be the judge of that," the Doctor snapped. "Take me to the area that was breached."

"Don't you want to see the Strobe?" That rustling again, as if the Helfovan was throwing his four limbs up in a nervy arm-waving display.

"Yes, of course. _After_ you've shown me what they did take."

The Helfovan curator shuffled off, and the Doctor followed.

#

"As you can see, sir, we have the area sealed off while the teams search for fingerprints and the like. We've sent the ropes they used to access the building for analysis."

"Oh, I doubt you'll find fingerprints. I expect this was a professional job. How did they bypass your security pressure pads?"

"Remarkable sleight of hand. They replaced the Goddess of Eternity with _that._ "

The Doctor squatted, as if he was taking a good look. "Right, Nardole," he said. He turned to the curator. "My assistant is sharpening his powers of observation to better identify the various artifacts we come across." Then he turned to Nardole. "How would you describe that?"

"Oh. I'd say that it was a clockwork squirrel. Very like …"

The Doctor stamped on Nardole's foot.

"… the type of toy found in many places across the universe, in fact. Could have come from anywhere."

The Doctor fought down a grin, tried to keep his face somber. She'd been here. His Clara, somehow she'd followed the instructions he'd left her and pulled off a daring robbery. He probably shouldn't like it, but he did.

"Do you have any leads?" he asked the curator.

"No, sir. The thief jumped out of the window and then vanished."

The Doctor couldn't hold back a laugh. He heard Nardole snort beside him.

"Do you wish to inspect the Keflafax Strobe, now?" the curator's voice was low, as if he were sharing secrets too precious to talk plainly about.

"Yes, yes. I just have to make a call." The Doctor strode off down the hallway towards the stairs, walking faster now, more confident than he had been on the way up as he'd committed every step to memory.

Nardole walked beside him. "What's the Keflafax Strobe?"

"No idea," the Doctor said, as they hurried out of the building.

#

 **Time Stamp: After the Vatican**

The Doctor pressed his hand against the vault, a terrible loneliness welling inside him. Would he do it? If he had no other choice? He knew, deep down, that there were no lengths he wouldn't go to keep this planet safe, but this one was not an easy choice to make. He'd called Bill, and warned her to make the most of the moments she had because darkness was coming. But who did he turn to in dark times? He had a longing, a deep, raw aching to talk to Clara.

He made it back to the TARDIS, sat in a metal chair on the upper level, and closed his eyes. Perhaps he could make it happen if he opened himself up to it. Maybe she would appear in his head again.

"Where are you, Clara Oswald?" he asked.

"I'm right here," her voice said, tapping the side of his temple.

"No, I mean where are you really? Where in the universe?" He didn't want visions or hallucinations, not tonight, not when reality and make-believe had been so closely wrought and bent out of shape. He wanted something real he could feel and touch, as well as believe in.

"Well, that's a question, isn't it?" she said.

"When I needed someone the most, you were there for me. Before I met you, I'd lost so many people I cared about. I'd decided to lock myself away, on a cloud, in a monastery—"

"—if the habit fits…"

He laughed self-deprecatingly. "I know." He continued, "Yet … there you were, dragging me back into life. The only mystery worth solving. My Clara." His throat felt hoarse, and he paused, trying to lift himself out of the dark mood threatening to swamp him. "Then of course I realsied you weren't a mystery at all. The was nothing impossible about you. You were the most wonderful, ordinary, amazing girl I'd met in a long, long time. You saved me, Clara. In so many ways. And I need you now. More than ever."

"Doctor," Clara's breath was hot on his cheek. He could almost believe she was there.

She took his hand and laid it on her chest. He felt the hot-cold of the Dark Star fragment. It was bigger than before.

"I put one of the fragments from the museum with the one on my necklace, and they sort of morphed together. Became one. It's quite clever, I can't see the join."

She was right, the stone was perfectly smooth.

"Doctor!" Clara's voice was filled with alarm. He tried to catch hold of her, but she was gone. He scanned the immediate area with the sonic glasses. In front of him, probably where Clara had stood, was a high-energy quantum fissure. The readings were varying wildly, a state of flux: a crack in the fabric of reality.

An uncertain whisper came from the other side of the crack.

"Doctor?"

"Clara?"

"Is that really you?" A small laugh. "If this is in my head again, it's not funny."

The Doctor took a step back and peered at the crack with his sonic glasses switched to transference mode. The crack swirled and kaleidoscoped in reds, blues and greens. Deep violet stress lines spread outwards from the central crack like an erratic spider's web. Whatever this was, it was putting the fabric of space-time under immense pressure.

The voice spoke again, with a ring of pain and sadness that made his heart ache. "I'm not playing this game, she said. "It's too cruel."

His heart breaking, he finally spoke. "It's really me, Clara. It's the Doctor."

He heard her gasp. Then she said, "Are you still you?"

"If you mean, am I still wearing this old face, then yes, I'm still me."

"Thank god," she said.

He blinked rapidly, because he hadn't been expecting that. She wanted _him_ , not the one who came next. That knowledge warmed his hearts and gave him hope.

"Doctor, can you see?"

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

There was a pause. "What is this?" she said.

"A quantum tear in the fabric of space-time, that's being wedged open by the Dark Star fragments. It's completely unstable, and could close at any time."

He looked through the crack, to see her life-reading moving. She must be pacing up and down, probably scowling at the fissure with every step she took.

"Well isn't this lovely," she said. "I've spent a hundred years chasing after you, always just missing you, never quite managing to arrive in the same place at the same time as you, and when we finally meet, it's because the universe is cracking apart."

"Dramatic irony?" he said, with a forced grin.

"Oh, Doctor, I don't know whether to kiss you or slap you."

"I'll take the first," he said.

She was standing close to the crack, he could pinpoint her voice just centimeters in front of him. If he reached through, he could touch her, he felt sure of it.

Tentatively he worked his fingers towards the gap. There was no crackle of energy, no pain. Then he felt her grasp his trembling fingers, and then hold his hand tight.

"Are you okay?" she said, her voice concerned now.

He fought back the glib answer. He had a difficult choice ahead of him. He was blind, and alone in the dark, and she still wasn't here. He couldn't find words for any of it. He was the Doctor, the man who fights monsters. The Oncoming Storm, the man with a Fatality Index measuring, well, he didn't even want to think about that. A terrible danger was coming to Earth. There was no time to be sentimental or doubt himself.

She gasped a little, a soft noise in the back of her throat. "What would happen if I stepped through this crack? Its big enough."

"Clara, I don't know. It seems stable for the moment, but it could close off at—"

She stepped through, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"That was reckless," he said, with no heat. He pulled her to his chest.

"I don't care."

He held her for the longest of moments, drinking in her scent, the closeness of her small body against his bringing him strength.

"Talk to me, Doctor," she said, her voice like a balm, soothing his soul. He told her about the darkness, about the secrets and his fear of telling Bill he was still blind. He told her about the vault, and the oath he'd made, and how he might have to break it. And he told her about the storm waiting to descend. When he was through, he felt lighter, unburdened.

"You know what you have to do, don't you?" she said, softly, her hand entwined in his. "Whatever it takes. If it means letting Missy out of that vault to save the world, then do it." She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Clara," he murmured, touching her hair, wanting to hold onto to her forever.

"There isn't much time. The crack, it's changing." She pressed something hard and cold into his hand. A rounded stone, on a clasp and chain. "It's the other fragment of the Dark Star. I think you should keep it close. I think it's all connected, somehow. I'll keep searching for more fragments. You go save the Earth."

Then she was gone, and when he directed the glasses to the place where the crack had been, there was nothing there at all. But his hearts were lighter, his purpose set. He would figure out a way to save the Earth, and when he was done with that, he'd find his way back to Clara.


	7. Chapter 7:Pyramid at the End ofthe World

**A desert city, in a galaxy far away. Time stamp:unknown.**

Clara and Ashildr worked their way through noisy, bustling crowds. It was market day in the sweltering city Clara couldn't remember the name of, and wearing her leather jacket had been a bad mistake. She had sand in her shoes and Ashildr didn't look any happier than Clara felt. She'd come along reluctantly, and Clara could sense ambivalence simmering under that haughty exterior. Ashildr didn't really want to help with the search for the fragments of Dark Star, but she couldn't quite say no, either.

A blue-skinned Bathran, her eyes catlike and yellow tried to press a dress into Clara's hand. "Pretty lady, a dress to captivate your love?" she said. The fabric was cool and silky in her fingers. Its intricate patterns seeming to move and dance on the fabric. Clara considered for a moment. "It'll take more than a nice dress," she said, and couldn't keep the wistful note from her voice.

"Ah, then your love, he is a fool, or he is blind."

Clara handed the fabric back, and said nothing further, because that thought was sticking in her throat, burning her like honey from the firefields of Arachon 12. She walked on, realising she'd lost sight of Ashildr in the throng. She spotted her, crouching by the side of the track, talking to a golden skinned woman. The woman's robes, once fine and resplendent to match her skin, were now threadbare and fading. She spoke quietly, keeping her eyes low. "Is it really you, Mayor Me?" Clara heard her say.

"Threpia." Ashildr exclaimed. "What happened to you? Where's Artee?"

The woman's seemed filled with sadness; her shoulders slumped, her spirit worn down. "When you left, the refugees scattered. Most fled Earth. We sought safety in the hidden corners of the universe. But _He_ found us."

Clara looked to Ashildr with inquiring eyes.

"Threpia and her son Artee were fleeing from violence, with several other Heflanoids. I promised to help them. I promised to keep them _safe_." Ashildr turned away, and Clara saw something her friend didn't reveal very often. Shame. "I let you down. I'm so sorry, Threpia. Do you know where Artee is?"

"He's with his father. Yabar is an evil warlord. I'm terrified Artee will get drawn into his world." The Heflanoid woman's eyes glistened with tears, but they did not spill. "The rest of our group left the city for the east coast. There's work there. But I stay close, scratch a living in the dust of this blasted city, just for the chance to snatch moments with Artee. He's desperately unhappy."

"Look, maybe we can help each other. We're looking for someone, the Portant of Drellmar. She's selling something we need."

"I know where you can find the Portant. But for me to make an enemy of her—"

"You tell us how to find her, and we'll get you and Artee off-world."

Threpia shook her head, in brisk, nervy jerks. "Yabar has a strangle-hold on transportation. We'll never get out."

"Oh, we have a way to leave. All we have to do is get Artee and get out of the city," Ashildr said.

Threpia's cheeks twitched uncertainly, and she chewed her bronzed lips. Then she nodded. "Alright. But as soon as Yabar knows Artee is missing, he'll declare a lock-down, and the city will be swarming with his men."

Clara took Ashildr aside. "Do we trust her?"

Ashildr nodded, her eyes full of regret.

Clara turned back to Threpia. "Okay. We'll need to split up. I'll do the business with the Portant while you two find Artee. We'll meet at the city gates."

"We won't all be able to get back to the Diner on the motorbike," Ashildr pointed out. They had stormed through the desert on the _Triumph Scrambler_ Clara had retrieved from a scrap-yard on Earth. She'd lovingly added quite a few modifications, she would be loathe to lose that bike.

Threpia was scanning the market place. It was as if she was coming alive before Clara's eyes, hope infusing her weary bones. Back straight now, she nodded towards an old bearded man in brown robes and a young man in desert apparel. "Looks like those guys just sold that sand-cruiser to that Vuvrian." Threpia nodded towards a cloaked figure, with a bulbous head scattered with many misshapen eyes. Her long antennae drooped past her shoulders and quivered as she conducted her transaction. "Those cruisers are notoriously easy to jack. If you can distract the new owner and give me two minutes alone in it, it's ours," Threpia said to Clara. Then she pointed across the street. "See that bar?" she motioned towards a squat building with a dark, uninviting interior. Laughs and jeers could be heard from within. "You'll find the Portant in there."

#

Twenty minutes later, Clara pulled the hood of a grubby cream cloak she'd traded her leather jacket for up over her head. She smiled warmly at the Vuvrian trader who Threpia had said was called Wioslea. "I have something you might be interested in," she said, carefully maneuvering them around so the trader had her back to her recent purchase. "If you're in the market for rare transport. Off-world tech." Clara pulled out her phone and showed the trader a photo of her bike, taken a long time ago, in a galaxy far away.

The Vuvrian fluttered her antenna. It was hard to tell if it was excitement or a sneer. "Never have I seen such a thing. Old tech."

"It's a _classic,_ " Clara corrected. "But if you're too scared to take a chance…" She shrugged and slipped the phone away. "Probably for the best. The Portant of Drellmar wants to take a look..." Clara squeezed the trader's shoulder in a conciliatory, no hard feelings kind of way.

"I did not say I have no interest," Wioslea said, her claw-like hands swaying at her side as she spoke.

Clara stole a glance over the trader's shoulder. Ashildr and Threpia were in the sand-cruiser now, Threpia bent low manipulating the control box.

"Well you're in for a treat," Clara said, putting her arm around Wioslea's shoulder. "Because that bike can do two hundred—"

The sand-cruiser roared to life. The Vuvrian spun around, her hands flying to her belt for a blaster that was no longer there.

Clara aimed the trader's own weapon at her belly, keeping the gun tucked tight to her own chest. "Let's not make a fuss, eh? The bike is by the south gate. We'll call it a trade. And believe me you're getting the better end of this deal." The trader's mouth formed an angry hiss, but she didn't move. Clara lobbed the Triumph's keys into the sand at the feet of crowd of market goers. She would miss that bike. But it seemed a small price for the freedom of Threpia and her son.

With a furious buzz from the back of her throat, Wioslea dived for the keys.

Clara tucked the blaster under her robes and slipped into the crowds while the angry Vuvrian was still scrabbling in the dust.

#

The bar was dark, and as Clara entered she was hit with a wall of sound and smell. Raucous laughter mingled with the tones of a jazz-style band, and a heady mix of alien liquor and the dour smell of too many species too close together assaulted her nose. The searing desert heat gave way to the heat of bodies up close. Clara made her way to the bar, passing a few races she recognised, but more that she didn't. There was one of Wioslea's people slumped at the bar, nursing a green drink in a long, steaming glass. Two white furred Eskrils with vivid green eyes slammed their glasses down, as the Luthoxian bar tender, already using her long tentacles to serve three customers at once, glanced their way. One threw back his head and roared his displeasure. Clara hurried past, keeping her hood up, her face covered. She'd learned a long time ago not to stare.

Threpia had said she would know the Portant of Drellmar because she'd "be the one everyone else is avoiding." It didn't take Clara long to find the woman, sitting alone at the back of the bar. She appeared humanoid, but her skin was pale, as if the colour had drained away and replaced by a snowstorm of silvery-white flecks. Her eyes were the palest blue Clara had ever seen; full blue, no whites, no pupils. She had no hair or eyebrows at all. Her ears were two simple slits at the side of her head. She wore a plain, white cloak over pale clothes, and sat with her hands folded neatly on her lap. In the otherwise crowded bar, it was clear the regular customers gave her a wide berth, for the tables around her were quite empty. Clara sat on the seat opposite.

The Portant fixed her misty eyes on Clara's own and leaned forward, raising her nose just slightly, as if testing the air around Clara. Clara was glad of the anonymity the hood and gave her.

"I know where you have been, and where you must return." The Portant's voice was soft, but Clara had no trouble in hearing her words. She wasn't quite sure if the woman had spoken out loud or inside her head.

Clara shuffled a little in her seat. "I understand you have something to sell," she said, unwilling to get side-tracked or needled. She wanted that fragment and then to get out of this hot, noisy bar.

"The price is high," the woman whispered.

Clara nodded once, and pulled a small blue velvet pouch from her pocket. She pushed it across the table. The woman placed a silvery hand over the velvet. Then she cocked her head to one side in a gesture of mild surprise, but her voice remained smooth. "Kyber crystals?"

"Three."

"A generous offer. Yet I must decline."

"What? Why?" Clara exclaimed.

"I do no business with the dead," she said.

"I'm not—" Clara stopped, biting back her angry retort.

"Prove it," the woman said.

Clara's mind whirled, trying to make sense of the woman's words and understand what she wanted. Everyone had a price. But it seemed kyber crystals were not it, not for the Portant.

"How?" Clara demanded. How could she prove that, if walking and talking wasn't enough?

"Reveal yourself." The Portant waved a silvery finger at Clara's hood.

Was this a trick, or a cruel way to expose her? The blaster tucked into her belt was less of a comfort than she imagined it would be. Clara bit her lip, and then after an agonizing moment of indecision, she pulled back her hood. Steeling herself, she fixed eyes with the woman across the table. The sounds around her faded. She saw dimly, in the edge of her visual field, that the Luthoxian bar tended had wrapped one tentacle around the impatient Eskril's neck. The world became a softer, less substantial place. Those pale blue eyes were the only part of the whole world that seemed real.

"You are a paradox," the Portant said, her voice a live thing worming its way inside Clara's skull. "Have we met before? Or perhaps we will meet again. It's hard to tell, sometimes." She sat back in her chair, regarding Clara with those pale eyes.

Clara leaned forward, wary of asking, but unable to hold back. "Are you a time traveler?" she whispered.

"Yes and no."

"What kind of answer is that?"

The woman smiled, her lips curving faintly, but the smile did not reach her eyes. "Give me your hand."

Clara wanted to run, the last thing she wanted to do was link hands with this stranger. But she wanted that fragment more. Reluctantly, Clara stretched her upturned palm across the table.

When the Portant's skin touched Clara's, palm flat against hers, a tingling began in her fingers. Familiar images crowded into her head. The images that came to her in dreams, sometimes. Other lives, other Clara's. Her and yet not her.

"So many past lives, always running." The Portant gasped, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Born to save him. Bound to love him."

Clara snatched her hand back. "What do you know about him?" she said, her hand burning from the touch, her heart aching from the words.

"The Predator. The Oncoming Storm. The Hybrid. _A dangerous combination of a passionate and powerful Time Lord and a young woman so like him._ "

"I was sick of that hybrid nonsense a long time ago." Clara's free hand was twitchy now, close to that blaster, her temper flaring dangerously.

Then a look of recognition flashed across the woman's face. "Oh. _You're_ the one."

"The one? What one? What are you talking about?"

"What would he think if he knew you were considering shooting me?" the woman said, with a faint, unconcerned smile.

"I don't need anyone else to tell me right from wrong. I won't shoot first, but I will defend myself."

The Portant pressed herself back into her chair, folded her arms in a half-amused gesture. She nodded, and glanced down at the table.

When Clara looked, the bag of kyber crystals was gone, and in its place a small, intricately carved black wooden box.

"Is this the fragment?"

The Portant nodded. She leaned in urgently. "There's a storm coming. Something that will sweep you both into the darkness. You must turn to the light."

The noise in the room hushed.

Four heavily built men, all dressed in the same dark military-style jackets, were pushing their way through the bar's clientele.

The Portant stood up. "Follow me."

Clara stared at her for a moment. Could she trust her? She looked back at the goons, knocking over tables, blasters strapped to their belts. _Yabar's men._ She stood up and followed the Portant through the back of the bar and out into the dusty streets.

#

"Artee has a private tutor, one of Yabar's trolls," Threpia said, "But he plays out in the palace gardens most afternoons. I speak to him through the fence." She measured her words, as if she were holding back a flood of emotions that would swamp her if she let them. How painful must it be for her have to spy through a crack in a fence to catch a glimpse of her son? For Artee to be so close, yet completely beyond her reach? Ashildr felt her failure more keenly than ever.

Threpia stopped the sand-cruiser beside a solid wooden fence, edged with a row of tall palms and scraggy, thorny bushes, stretching in either direction for hundreds of meters. Beyond the fence was a great house, a palace Threpia had called it, with a tall spire on one side, and an open balcony along a large section of the front. Ahsildr remembered Threpia had left behind a life of luxury when she could no longer stomach her husband's ruthless empire.

Threpia got out of the cruiser. She crouched in the sand beside a bush, and pressed her nose to the fence. They waited in silence, and Ashildr lost track of time. She couldn't remember her own children, although she had left herself reminders of the pain losing them caused. She sighed. If she hadn't fled Earth when she did, perhaps Artee would be safe. There were a lot of things she shouldn't have done. Clara Oswald was a daily reminder of that. If these fragments of Dark Star could really free her of the Quantum Shade's contract, she didn't blame her for wanting to try. But where would that leave Ashildr? Traveling alone again. That thought left a hollow space in her chest. How did the Doctor do it? Moving from one to the next and somehow never getting jaded or losing hope.

Threpia's vigil was finally rewarded with a small voice from behind the fence. "Mama, is that you?"

"Yes, its me. Are you alone in the garden?"

"Yes, but Aflec is up on the balcony. Mama, please get me soon. I hate it here."

Threpia whispered to Ashildr. "Aflec is one of Yabar's men. He'll have a clear shot from up there." She paused, and looked Ashildr straight in the eye. "I've thought this through, Mayor Me. I can climb that fence, using that tree." She pointed at a palm by the fence.

Ashildr viewed it skeptically. I would be a long stretch. "Okay—" she began.

Threpia went on, "I'll jump over, and then I can boost Artee over to you."

Ashildr shook her head, but Threpia's eyes were full of determination. She gripped Ashildr's arm. "It doesn't matter what happens to me. As long as you get Artee away from here. You promised."

"I promised to get _both_ of you out, not leave you as target practice." Ashildr eyed the fence again. "Tell Artee to stand well back."

Ashildr leapt back into the sand-cruiser. As she turned the ignition, the whole vehicle raised itself from up and quivered, sand and dust blowing in all directions under the airfoil blast. Ashildr thrust the vehicle backwards to give herself a good run up. Threpia was talking urgently to Artee through the fence, her eyes wide as she glanced back at Ashildr.

Ashildr hunched as low as she could behind the protective front screen of the roofless sand-cruiser. Sometimes being short was a distinct advantage. As she pumped her foot at the pedal, the engine screamed into life. She aimed at the center of one of the fence panels, between two posts, took a deep breath, and then slammed the sand-cruiser forward. In seconds wood exploded around her, splinters and debris raining down into the cruiser like jagged hail rattling against the metal. She forced her eyes open. The impact had killed her speed. She was stationary in a large grassy garden, much lusher and greener than anything on this desert world had any right to be. She scanned the area urgently. Where were Threpia and Artee?

Ashildr jerked the cruiser forward as a particle blast erupted above. "Threpia!" Ashildr desperately scanned the garden, turf flying as beams narrowly missed the cruiser. "Threpia!" Ashildr called again, a sick feeling in her stomach now. Then she saw the golden-skinned woman crouched low behind a bush, sheltering a little boy all dressed in white from the energy beams shooting down from the balcony. Ashildr flung the cruiser between them and the shooter, keeping herself hunched as low as she could. Threpia bodily threw the lad in and dived in herself. Ashildr thrust the cruiser backwards in a curve to line herself up for the hole in the fence.

More blaster fire above, shouting and swearing in an alien tongue. They would be down in the garden soon, for sure.

Ashildr slammed her foot to the floor and sped from the garden.

#

Clara ran closely behind the Portant, keeping her hood up and her face concealed. It was odd, she reflected, how people on the densely packed street drifted out of the silvery woman's way. One bulbous faced, wide headed man bumped Clara, his shoulder painfully impacting with hers. He growled, a deep sound in his throat, and grabbed her arm. "You should watch where you're going," he rumbled, towering over her.

"You bumped into _me,"_ Clara pointed out.

"I don't like that," he said, moving in closer. "It makes me feel angry when you say that."

Clara looked him up and down, one huge hand swung at his side, the other wrapped painfully around her bicep. Her hand moved almost unconsciously to the blaster tucked in her belt.

The Portant stepped between them. "We don't want any trouble," she said. "I think you might want to get a drink."

The big man's shoulders slumped. "I'm sick of this. I'm going to get a drink," he echoed, and lumbered away.

"How did you do _that_?" Clara said.

"The trouble with carrying a blaster," the Portant said, ignoring Clara's question, "is that it closes the mind to more imaginative solutions."

Clara's face burned. She knew the woman was right. What was she in danger of becoming? The very thing that she had warned the Doctor against? The blaster would have to go.

#

Ashildr was tearing full speed through the city streets now, her hair flying loose in the wind, a sense of victory burning in her chest. Artee and Threpia hadn't let go of one another the whole journey. They had passed through the crowded city centre and the busy road to the spaceport, and now they were headed towards the gates. Clara should be there by now. Where was she?

Ashildr brought the cruiser to a stop. Clara and a tall, pale woman dressed in white must have been standing by the tall city gates all along, yet Ashildr hadn't noticed them. _How strange._

Clara clambered in. The silvery skinned woman stood by the cruiser. The Portant, Ashildr presumed. So perhaps Clara got what she came for.

Ashildr heard Threpia make a small gasp. Artee squealed and the little boy tried to disappear under his mother's worn golden cloak.

Two giant men, blasters strapped to their belts, walked up to the cruiser. One spoke into his radio, then said to Ashildr. "We need to search your passengers. Two Heflanoid prisoners on the loose."

Ashildr pressed her lips tight, looked at the city gate. There was no chance it would splinter like the fence had. It was made of solid, weather beaten metal. The cruiser would be smashed to pieces against it.

The woman who had been standing with Clara placed herself between the men and Threpia. "These are not the Heflanoids you are looking for," she said, fixing the guards with her pale, icy stare.

"These aren't the Heflanoids we're looking for," he echoed. "Move along." He gestured them towards the city gates.

The woman turned to Clara. "Tell the Doctor my debt to him is gratefully discharged." She bowed her head, and then seemed to fade away, until the place she had been standing was no more than a swirl in the sand.

#

 **Keffler, a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. Time Stamp: Unknown.**

The little girl covered her head with her hands, and tried to make herself as small as she possibly could.

"Moon-child," the voices taunted. "Your kind are not welcome here!"

"Please! I've nowhere to go." She shivered and pulled her robes around her, hugging her knees close to her body against the cold night air. The ground was damp under her.

"How come you can't use that kooky time-sight to find somewhere else to go?" The boots that nudged at her were much bigger than the ragged shoes on her own small feet. She covered her sensitive ear slots as the shouting continued. "We don't want you around our kids."

Then she heard another voice. Not like _theirs,_ rough and harsh, but soft like a song, almost. His words stilled the cruel laughter.

"You know what you really, really don't want?" the voice said.

She hardly dare look, but she peaked anyway, her heart racing. What now? In the shadows was a tall man in a dark coat. All the adults around her fell silent. His voice took on power now, raising in timbre. "You _really_ don't want me angry with you. And what I've seen tonight makes me very, very angry."

The men and woman suddenly became interested in their shoes, shuffling their feet in the dirt. A few began to slink away. One or two lingered, though. "She's not like us—" a man with his blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail began.

The tall man's fury blasted out from him, making the other man stagger back. "I don't care!" he roared.

He crouched down, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Can you get up?" he said.

She nodded, and quickly scrambled to her feet. She should run now. That's what she'd done her whole life, run, found a place to stay for a while, and then run again. But the tall man's presence captivated her. She could see his time-lines whirling and swirling around him in a way she'd never seen before. Never so many, never so complex and colourful in greens, blues and yellows. She blinked several times.

He took her hand, even as the townspeople were leaving and he could have just left her too, he took her hand and spoke gently to her. "What's your name?"

"Drellmar," she whispered.

"Well, Drellmar. I know a few of your people. Far away from here. I can take you, if you want."

"I don't have a way to pay you," she said.

He crouched down to her level, and smiled. "One day, you are going to help a friend of mine. That's all the payment I'll ever need. I'm the Doctor, by the way. Come on," he said, tweaking her nose and standing up. "We've got a long journey ahead of us."

#

The Portant of Drellmar saw the future and the past; all that ever could be, or ever was. Holding futures in their heads drove many of her people mad. If the Doctor had not taken her to the temple when he did, although she only learn this years later, it would have probably been too late for her. He saved her twice. Once from savagery on a cold winter's night, another from the terror of her own mind.

When she dreamed, Drellmar dreamed of lines and colours. Most lifeforms had one colour line in their hyper-spectral aura, dancing and playing around their bodies in swirling, ever-changing patterns. The Doctor's aura had been made of many time-lines: a riot of colours and shapes, in a complex, strikingly beautiful pattern around his corporeal form, visible only to those few like her who were time-seers. Drellmar had dreamed of the Doctor many times in the years since he saved her.

Drellmar had never seen an aura like the one she saw today, though. The Doctor's friend Clara was no Time Lord, but she was touched by time. Trapped by it, no less. Her time lines were erratic, paradoxical, and conflicted, swirling around her in a angry, jagged cloud. One line in particular caught Drellmar's attention. It was black, and spiraled around Clara's body in an infinite regress. There was only one creature in the universe capable of creating a timeline like that, but the lines _they_ wove were invariably fractured and short. Drellmar had never seen the line of a Quantum Shade trapped in a recursive loop.

#

Drellmar jerked awake. For a moment she thought she saw blackness above her, a feathered demon sneaking into her chambers, but it then was gone. She ran a hand across her forehead, and found it sticky with sweat. She rose from her bed and opened a window and let in the cool air of the desert night. She stood and gazed for a while at her temporary home's three moons. It would be time to move on, soon. She wouldn't miss this place. She never missed anywhere when she left, except the temple. Her heart longed for the quiet of the marble halls and the whispering gardens that she would never see again. That she had ever known peace at all was thanks to one man. She sighed and began to get dressed. Her debt to the Doctor might be discharged, that was true, but it didn't mean that the story was over.


	8. Chapter 8: The Lie of the Land

The Doctor walked away from Bill and headed to the basement steps. He paused once he was out of her sight, leaned against the wall and felt the cool bricks under his fingers, grateful at least that he'd held it together in front of Bill. She forgave him for putting her through that performance on the prison boat. For pushing her to breaking point until she lost hope and shot him. Why did they always forgive him his cruel excesses? Because it was _necessary_? Because he always made amends by pulling off the impossible? But it had been cruel to put Bill through that, and in the cold light of day, he didn't like what he'd done. Those terrible messages he'd broadcast still stuck in his throat. At first, the Monk's had him entirely under their control. Once he'd wrestled his mind free he'd sought to make amends. He worked every day to turn the guards over to his side. He told himself people in camps were safer there than they would be on the streets where they could be killed for dissent. But every night he wondered how many people died while he was planning and scheming. There were no good choices under the Monks. Six months alone on that boat had seemed an eternity. After they had defeated the Monks, he still felt open and raw, but he'd put on his coat and played the Doctor for Bill again because that's what she needed and deserved.

A wave of tiredness washed over him. He'd been shot, flooded his system with regeneration energy and then reabsorbed it, and the next day he'd had his brain frazzled and his body blasted across the room. It was no wonder he felt tired. He ran his fingers through his hair. Always something to do. He needed to see Missy, it was only fair, but he didn't want her to see him like this. He had to put himself back together somehow before he went down to the vault. He needed something. He needed help. He needed _Clara._ He stuck his hand in his jacket pocket, and found the fragment of Dark Star she'd given him, months ago now, radiating heat and cold in a paradoxical blast of energy. Standing on the threshold of basement steps, facing the dark, the light golden at his back, he whispered her name.

Clara Oswald lay on her bed in her room in the Diner, fingering the Dark Star fragments she'd strung on a rhodium chain and hung around her neck. She watched a tear in the fabric of the universe form above a few feet above her, twisting into existence and then fading away. The small rips in time could come and go in a moment, but the larger ones lasted longer. She'd even stepped through a crack once and found herself alone and chilled in the Doctor's study. She'd watched students through the windows who walked slowly, soulless and empty across the grass, and it sent shivers down her spine. Part of her wanted to investigate, to get to the bottom of whatever this mess was, but something else told her she shouldn't. She'd stepped back through to the Diner in need of a strong drink.

It had been six months now since she'd had any contact with the Doctor. She'd tried tracking him through the vortex. She visited places she knew he'd been in the past, but every time she'd just miss him, never able to get into sync with where he was in any particular moment. She'd tried closing her eyes and opening her mind, but that hadn't worked either. Time and again she'd peered through random cracks, to no avail.

The hundred years between the time she and the Doctor had sat together in the Cloisters and the day she saw him again had been hard. Over time, somehow, she'd accepted it was for the best and almost got used to it. But this was much worse. Things seemed to be happening that meant they could be together, at least she thought so. Those shared conversations, the Dark Star fragments and the quantum crack that allowed them to physically touch. Seeing him again, talking to him, holding him in her arms, those things had ripped open old wounds. She began to let herself dream dangerous dreams. And now it felt like she'd lost him all over again. It had been months, and she didn't know where he was, if he was safe. Was he still blind? What if the face she loved was gone and she'd never see him again? Never get the chance to tell him, show him, how she felt?

She had been right about one thing all those years ago in the Cloisters.

People _should_ say things to one another.

Clara sat on the side of her bed, and wished something would happen, anything. She tugged the necklace out from under her shirt. It didn't like being in the open air, it would fizzle and pop anytime it was away from her skin and exposed to the light, but she took it off anyway.

"What are you playing at, eh?" she said, resentment sticking in her throat. "What's the point of all this if I can't see him?" The black pendant jittered on the end of its chain, as if the strange dark gem somehow objected to her question.

G _reat. Now I'm talking to a chunk of space-rock._ She should probably go find Ashildr and suggest a day at a spa, or better yet go back to the antigrav Olympics and watch the free fall motorcycle team. She was just about to tuck the necklace back under her shirt and do just that, when another glimmering crack opened in the corner of her room. One of the big ones, running from the floor to the ceiling. The sort that could stay open for hours. Hardly daring to hope, she stepped towards the crack. She held the Dark Star in front of her, letting it dangle on its silver chair.

"Woah!" The necklace pulled itself taut, jerking towards the glittering tear in space-time.

Through the silvery light of the tear, she saw steps, a dark basement, and a door with flashing red and blue lights.

Then she heard his voice.

"Clara?" His voice sounded hoarse, pained, as if he was hurting.

Blinded by tears and the silver-white light she stumbled towards the sound of his voice. _Please. Please let me go to him._

The world became a disjointed blur.

He was standing at the top of a set of steps, framed in sunlight.

She wrapped her arms around his body, which felt thinner, more fragile somehow than she'd ever known him. His breaths were coming in short rasps, like a wounded small animal, and his skin felt chilled to the touch.

She gasped and fought back tears. "Doctor, what happened to you?"

He held onto to her without speaking, his head hung low, his arms around her waist, holding her as if she were a lifeline. His whole body trembled. He was hiding his face, she knew it. Gently she pulled back a fraction so he had to look at her. His eyes were hollow.

"Doctor. Can you see?"

"Yes, I can see." There was no joy there, no relief to have had his sight restored.

Coldness swept through Clara. "What happened to you?"

"What happened to me? I think it's what happened to everyone else we need to worry about," he said. The daylight faded, and they were under artificial light.

He met her eyes for a moment, and then he wriggled free and powered away. "Clara, you should go. I can't stand it. I can't stand what I've done. I don't want you to see me like this." His voice was desperate, broken, and he paced away across the room. Clara realised they were in her room, but he seemed disorientated, unaware of his surroundings. He moved a chair by her dresser aside, as if he needed to do something, anything with his hands. He picked up a hand mirror, then with barely a glance he tossed it down again. "I can't, Clara."

Clara strode over to him and took his hand firmly. "Doctor. Stop. Please, just talk to me."

He shook his head. "You'll hate me. I hate myself."

"Whatever it is, Doctor, nothing could make me hate you. Nothing."

"I don't think I'm always a good man. Sometimes I get carried away with my own schemes. I can be cruel. Without meaning to be. I didn't mean to push Bill so far. I didn't even stop to think. But that's how it goes, isn't it? Eventually you have to stop and think, and you look into yourself and see darkness."

He tried to untangle their hands and move away, but instead of letting him go, she held his hand tighter and grasped his lapel with her other hand.

"You looked into my darkness, Doctor, and you didn't turn away."

The fight went out of him a little, his shoulders slumped, his face slackened. "Your darkness threw a shadow over you and I. Mine cast your whole world into darkness for months and then pushed a young woman to the edge of reason. I turned her into someone who could shoot her friend. How is that for dark? Still like what you see?" His tone was angry now, bitter, pushing her away.

Clara Oswald would not be pushed. "Do you think I care for you so little, that it makes a difference?"

He slumped then, seemed to deflate into her arms, weariness taking him in waves.

"Tell me what you need, Doctor."

"I'm tired, so tired," he said, as if those words were an admission of defeat.

Clara nodded, and tugged him gently towards her bed. "Rest your head, old man," she said. He let her guide him, and sunk onto the bed as if he hadn't rested in a lifetime. Clara didn't ask him any more questions, she knelt by the bed, her fingers entwined with his.

"I don't deserve you," he said.

"My Doctor," she said. "You and I both know, I'm exactly what you deserve."

He looked so conflicted in that moment, as if he needed to breathe out a vast black cloud, but was afraid it would smother his soul if he set it free. Part of her wanted to lay with him, part of her told her that might not be wise; he was too raw, too vulnerable.

Perhaps what he needed was space to put himself back together in his own way.

His eyes were heavy and red-lidded. They fluttered open and then shut, and then he forced them open again. "Stay with me," he said.

"Every moment I can," she whispered. If that was what he wanted, what he needed, what else could she do then, but lay down carefully by his side, her fingers entwined with his?

She moved close alongside him and put her hand gently to his face. "Hush now. Close your eyes."

His eyes did close, and his breathing became more regular, his chest rising and falling in time with a pulsing in her own soul. His face softened as he slept, the thin line of his lips slackening, the dark shadows under his eyes seeming to fade.

She let her own body relax, and tried not to think of his pain, but of his resilience.

Although Clara hated to see him hurting, something warm settled in her own heart. He'd come to her. He wanted _her_ ; in all the madness he called her name. The quantum crack had opened when he needed her most. Perhaps they _were_ fated to be together. She glanced at the crack, pulsing gently in the corner of the room. By the size of it, it could a few hours. Clara shifted herself closer to the Doctor, until she could feel every breath he took, and see every expression that flitted across his sleeping face. He was calm now, his face smooth and as beautiful as ever. Whatever had happened, he was still the Doctor.

#

The Doctor woke feeling lighter. In the split second it took orient himself, he realised he was on a TARDIS, but not his own, there was a stable multiphasic trans-dimensional quantum tear in the fabric of space-time four meters to his left, and beside him lay the other half of his shattered hearts. Clara Oswald, right next to him, her eyes closed, her smile still perfect. Chrono-locked, trapped in the cross-hairs of a Quantum Shade, but possibly, just possibly, with the key to it all hanging on a chain around her neck; those fragments of Dark Star. She'd added to the necklace since he'd seen her last, he could sense the raw power pulsing in time with the vibrations from the quantum tear.

She moved fractionally, and his breath caught in his chest. Could he lay here for the rest of time, just watching her? He knew that was an idle fantasy; he could no more force himself to lay still than he could wrestle the clocks of the universe to a stop. But it was the sort of question an old man could divert himself with for a few seconds before he had to face what came next.

Her chest was still, her heart still locked between one heartbeat and her last. He'd done this to her. Trapped her in stasis. Made her into an immortal thing with the Sword of Damocles hanging over her every moment, living in the shadow of a Quantum Shade.

All because he couldn't let her go. What madness had driven him to such lengths? If love was slavery, then he was happily her slave. It was no use denying it to himself anymore, wrapping his words in a mystery and thinking himself clever for it _._

 _Do you think I care for you so little_ was a fine phrase to hide behind.

Now she'd played him at his own game he saw the flaw in those opaque words.

She'd told him something very important in the Cloisters. He'd remembered so many things about her over the years, how she looked, her smile, and the times they had spend together. Why couldn't he unlock that memory? How did she really feel about this old face?

She had been right; people really should say things instead of hiding behind clever words.

The quantum tear flickered at the edge of his vision, silvery and always pulsing, a bridge between their two lives. How much time would it give them?

She stirred. Her eyes flicked open and met his. "Hello," she whispered. Her soft smile lit her face and his hearts.

He propped himself up on his elbow, but he didn't get up from the bed. If he moved one fraction closer to her, or one fraction further away, he was afraid he'd shatter this perfect moment. Fear had held him captive for too long, made a coward of him.

He heard a voice echoing down the ages.

 _Fear is a superpower, it makes you faster and cleverer and stronger. Fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly, fear can make you kind._

The Doctor gasped aloud, something hot and raw spearing his hearts.

So very long ago now, twelve lifetimes past, he'd listened to a voice whispering in the dark. It suddenly became crystal clear to him that the voice had been _hers_.

"It was you, wasn't it? That night in the barn," he whispered.

Everything was coming full circle. She had been there at the very start, giving him more to be than a lonely boy crying in the dark, giving him the compass to guide his whole life: _the soldier so brave he didn't need a gun._ The man who frightened the monsters. Never cowardly or cruel. She gave him that: Clara Oswald created the Doctor.

The portal flickered at the edge of the room. The basement winked on the other side. He turned his eyes back to Clara.

She brushed the tips of her fingers hesitantly across his jaw, so lightly her touch was like silk. "That must be so long ago for you now. How can you even remember?"

"You're in my DNA, Clara," he said. "All my lives, you're there, always running. Saving me." Every fiber of his being was entwined with hers.

"Born to save him, bound to love him," Clara murmured. "Someone told me that. The Portant of Drellmar. She asked me to tell you her debt to you is discharged."

He closed his eyes. That name. It was important somehow, backwards, forwards, future, past, twisted time lines tied up with the woman laying at his side, and, had he heard her right? Did she say she was bound to love him? His head pounded. He forced his eyes open, because now he had to know. Now, in this moment, when the tear was pulsing in time with the hammering of his hearts.

He saw her completely as she lay beside him, her brown eyes large, her pupils dilated. Her smile curving up, crinkling her eyes in the way he remembered. Her lips were blush red and slightly parted, as if was about to say something but couldn't find her voice.

She was so close, he could smell her perfume, breathe in her very essence. It would be the work of a moment to lean across and kiss her. She didn't move away. Her eyes roved around his face, to his eyes, then falling back to his lips, as if she too were thinking as he was, wanting to break down the walls that they had built around themselves. If she wanted to move away, she would. He had to do something.

Yet he was still afraid.

"I want to kiss you," he finally forced out, his throat tight, his whole world collapsing into her. She could destroy him now. He'd given her the most powerful weapon in the universe; the key to his hearts.

"I want that too," she said, turning her face to him, moving closer into his arms. "I don't care anymore about why we shouldn't. This is the only thing that makes any sense."

Her lips were on his, her mouth warm and open, her body pressed close, sending small shock waves rolling through him. Her hands were in his hair, her tongue sliding sweetly against his own. She tugged him closer, pressing his lips with hers, and he felt her smile under his own lips.

"This is an idea I could really get behind," he said. "I think we should do a lot more of this."

"Kissing?" she said, laughing a little.

"Definitely. I'm a kissing person now," he said, and to prove it he kissed her again.

The world brightened, and for a moment he thought he was caught in some kind of hormone-fuelled ecstasy. But his rational mind knew what was happening. The quantum crack was pulling him back. Taking him away from her. The room blurred, reality fragmented.

He heard her sigh his name.

 _Doctor._

He found himself once more on the basement steps, every sense heightened, his body more awake than it had been in years, trembling with frustration. "Put me back!" he growled, running down a few steps. Then he stopped. He certainly felt back on track. But what a cruel joke. He decided in that moment, that the universe was quite simply a bastard. Still, it wouldn't beat him. Not while he had breath in his lungs and a fragment of Dark Star in his pocket. He'd find a way back to Clara.

 **Location unknown**

In the depths of time, darkness of the interstitial void, the First's rage was legion. "I provided you with the means to model every moment in human history to find their weakness, and in the process destroy the Time Lord. How is it that you failed?"

The red-robed Monk's ruin of a face held no answers.

"His existence offends order. He bends time out of shape. The hybrid prophecy was a dust mote in my eye, a Time Lord fairy tale about which I cared nothing. And yet the hybrid's power grows. Not just to ruin Gallifrey, but to fracture time itself!"

The First swept the Monk away. It had no further use for the failed Monks.

The Quantum Shade fluttered to the First's side. "The seeds of destruction are sewn. She wears fragments even now."

"How many?"

"She has three. He has one."

"Then it is no wonder the forces are out of alignment," the First's voice was low now, smooth, like the last of the sunlight over dark water. "Must I oversee everything personally?"

The Shade flapped its wings in nervous irritation. "Things are in motion. Soon equilibrium will be reached. But it is delicate. We must bait the trap."

The First's voice echoed in the void, across space and time, past and future. "The hybrid moves ever closer." The First wrapped time around itself in a silver sheet, and then it vanished into darkness.


	9. Chapter 9

Sorry for the glitchy up load earlier!

This chapter starts where the previous one left off.

" _Doctor_." His name tumbled from Clara's lips like a stolen dream, a broken promise laced with longing and regret. He had been lying right next to her, vibrant and real. Moments later he vanished in a haze of silvery light, pulled back through the quantum crack. It was a cruel trick.

Clara sat up, her hands trembling, her lips tingling, her heart aching. She felt more alive than she had in years. She pressed her fingers to her wrists, hoping her heart had somehow started again. But there was no tickle under her fingertips to indicate blood pulsing through her veins. She was still time-locked. But _something_ had happened. A spurt of endorphins, perhaps, to wake her sleeping nervous system for a few seconds. She glared at the space where the quantum crack had been, now just an ordinary corner of her bedroom. It was time to take control, she decided. If these Dark Star fragments could wedge open space and time, then it was about time she learned how they worked.

Clara took the necklace to the Diner's Deep-Time Quantum Analysis Lab. Tearing around the universe for a hundred years with Ashildr in a stolen Type 40 TARDIS meant she'd learned a thing or two about Time Lord technology. Mainly, she'd learned doing anything was a process of negotiation. The Diner took care of them, after a fashion. She didn't always take them where they wanted to go, but somehow they ended up where they needed to be. When they'd decided on a whim to pop back to Earth for a tub of Ben and Jerry's (nowhere else in the universe made ice cream quite like it) they'd found themselves first in ancient Constantinople, later at the top of Mount Fuji, and then at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. They had ended up rescuing the crew of a Benzazi spacecraft that had crashed into the ocean, and Clara gave up on the ice cream after that. But when Ashildr absorbed a rare form of Venflaxian cytotoxin that the Mire chip couldn't deal with, the Diner delivered them promptly to the exo-biology department in the most advanced hospital in the galaxy.

In the lab, Clara fired up the chrono-spectrometer, which looked to her like a complicated microscope with a azbantium lens. She took off her necklace, and slid the black pendant under the lens.

"Let's see what makes you tick," she muttered as she programmed a full analysis of the fragment's quantum properties. As the machine hummed to life, the pendant sparked silvery-blue.

Clara jumped. A tear burst into life beside her. Energy poured from the gem in the analyser into the crack, filling the air with a silver glow.

A shadowy figure formed inside the tear.

"Doctor?"

"Clara," he said, his voice almost a song. He stepped through the crack, and without a moment's hesitation, swept her into his arms.

"Oh!" she gasped. He was wearing different clothes that he had been a few minutes before, and he smelled like he'd just shaved.

He pulled her close. The skin on his chin was smooth, his eyes stormy, and he kissed her with a passion that would have taken her breath away, if she was breathing.

"How long has it been?" he whispered after the kiss finally broke.

"A few minutes," she said. "How long has it been for you?"

"Ages," he said. "Longest month of my life." Then he kissed her again, pulling her closer, with his hands on the small of her back, urgent yet tender.

That kiss hit her like a summer storm, bending her out of shape, unlocking secrets she barely remembered and hadn't thought possible since the chrono-lock. With his lips against hers she couldn't think straight. And why would she want to think, when she could just lose herself in how good he tasted, and the way every nerve ending she'd thought dormant was springing to life? Clara heard herself moan, a small noise that almost embarrassed her, because she really hadn't expected this. _God. Is nothing impossible around this man?_

The quantum tear behind him continued to sparkle and twist, bathing the lab in a silvery light.

The Doctor kissed her neck, all the time speaking in a low, rushed voice. "We may not have long. What do you know about the cracks?"

She glanced at the chrono-spectrometer where the fragment was under analysis.

He followed her eyes. "Aha!" he said, and took her hand, whirling them both towards the machine. "Now that's interesting!"

"What is?"

He pointed at the readings. A burst of many-coloured waveforms danced and swirled across the screen in complex patterns. "Look at the temporal vibrational pattern." He paused for a moment, letting her hand drop, and started to pace around the lab, while pulling his sonic sunglasses out of his pocket and putting them on.

"No. It couldn't be." He was moving at a frantic pace now, and he turned to her and asked urgently, "What was your last thought? On the Trap Street before, you know …"

"I wanted to be brave," Clara said, trying to keep up with his pace and his racing thoughts.

He came to a sudden halt. "You _were_ brave, Clara," he said softly. "But I don't think it was just that, was it?"

She looked down at the floor, and screwed up her face. "That I wanted … I wanted to run with you forever. That you and me, we should _be_ together. What has that got to do with the necklace?"

"What were you doing when you found the first fragment?"

"I was looking for you. In Victorian London. But everywhere I went it seemed like I'd just missed you."

"You wanted to find me."

"Yes, and the first crack appeared, and the stone with it."

"Never underestimate the power of a dying wish," he whispered.

"I don't understand."

He took the glasses off and gently slid them on her, and then he stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

She gasped. Through them the quantum tear was not just silver-white, but it had a spectrum of many colours. The same complex waveform as the pattern on the chrono-spectrometer.

"When the Quantum Shade took you, your dying wish created a primal force. I think the Dark Star fragments are amplifying that. Tearing through the layers of the universe and somehow …"

"Bringing us together?"

The Doctor grinned. "Mad, isn't it?"

It was mind-blowing, really. Could a dying wish really have an impact in the real world? One thing Clara had learned over the years was that anything was possible. If they wanted this hard enough, maybe they could make it happen.

She spun around in his arms. "Can you stay?"

He tipped her chin up with his fingers. "I don't think so, not yet."

The tear was tugging at him now, pulling him away from her. She held onto him tightly, pressing her body to his, as if she could keep him by sheer force of will.

"What do we do?" she said urgently. She would do anything to keep them together.

"We need to generate enough power to keep a crack open," he said.

"By finding more fragments?"

"Yes," he said. "And more kissing. We definitely need to do more of that."

"What has that got to do with the quantum tear?"

"Nothing. I just really like it."

His lips were on hers again, but he was already fading, his figure merging with the silver light.

Clara's mind raced. "I can do it," she called. "I'll find more fragments."

Then, in a glittering swirl of silver light, he was gone.

#

In the console room, the Doctor stepped away from the shimmering crack in space-time and watched as it shrink until it closed with a gentle, slurping pop.

He ran his hand through his hair. Did he look as dishevelled as he felt? He put two fingers to his lips, still tingling from the kiss. The lips are the most nerve-rich skin in humans, and Time Lords are no different. No wonder kissing felt good. It produced an addictive cocktail of chemicals. Epinephrine made the heart beat faster, sending a wave of oxygenated blood to the brain. Waves of endorphins brought on a rush of euphoria, triggering the reward centres in the cortex. Making him want more. Not only that, other parts of his body wanted to get involved. Parts that usually didn't bother him, parts that under normal circumstances performed their excretory functions and left him well alone. What it all meant, of course, was that he wanted—needed—to kiss her again.

"Are you quite alright, sir?" Nardole's voice came from behind him.

He straightened his jacket took a calming breath. "Fine. Perfectly fine."

"Oh. You look at bit … ruffled."

"What are you even doing here? I thought I asked you to find Bill?"

"Yes Sir. She says to tell you she's finishing her essay on free will, she's got a date tonight and you don't run her life, but she'll see you tomorrow." Nardole said. He narrowed his eyes. "What have you got planned?"

"A little jaunt to NASA."

He knew he needed something, anything, to keep his mind off the holes in his hearts. Heaven help him, he was even considering visiting Missy again. She was a good distraction. Trying to fathom out if she had any remorse or was shedding crocodile tears would keep him busy for decades.

#

Clara was ready for anything. She'd dropped the grumbling Ashildr off to see a friend, and now stood by the Diner doors. She looked out over a steamy, dense jungle. The canopy dappled the light on the jungle floor, casting shifting patterns of light and shade. The hoots and screams of jungle creatures overhead, far out of sight, rang through the undergrowth. Clara wore sturdy boots, tan shorts, and a black vest top. This planet was ancient Arbroathia, a millennia before the museum she'd raided a couple of weeks ago was built. The statue she'd taken of the Goddess of Eternity, Aramantha, had given up her Dark Star eyes, and they were already part of Clara's necklace. But the Goddess was one of a pair. She and her lover, Amit, the Eternal God, were worshiped on Arbrothia and Clara was here to it. Perhaps Amit's eyes would also be fragments of Dark Star. Map in hand, Clara stepped out of the Diner and then stopped. A glistening tear was forming by a shrub covered in vivid purple flowers. The delicate petals glimmered in the silver light. Clara took an eager step forwards. It had been a little over a week since the last tear had brought the Doctor to her.

Clara touched the Dark Star, which she'd wrapped in a fabric pouch to stop it touching her skin when she wore it like this. The gem was a proper paradox. It had to be close to her, away from the light, but not touching her skin. She'd bound it in cloth when she'd dressed for the jungle as she couldn't tuck it between two layers of clothes. She thumbed the gem now, hoping, wishing above all else, that the Doctor would step through the tear.

And there he was. He stepped through the crack and looked around, taking in the surroundings with a sweeping glance, and then his eyes lingered on her face. He looked at the map. "Going somewhere without me?"

"Not if you can come," Clara said. Could they do this together? The thought filled her with a bubbling, sparkling kind of joy.

"I don't know how long that crack will stay open. I'm due to meet Bill and Nardole in less than five minutes on this side."

"So, it would be a bit reckless, then, to come with me through this wild jungle and search the Lost Temple of Zabereth for the Eternity God's statue so we can steal its eyes?"

The Doctor grinned broadly, his long arms looping around her waist and drawing her closer. "Completely reckless."

Clara's spirits soared, warmth spreading through her. "What are we waiting for?"

#

The pathway was springy underfoot, scattered with dead leaves and twigs, and fronds from the orange ferns that made up a large proportion of the underbrush. Thick purple moss clung to gnarled and twisted tree trunks in the forest's darker places. Wherever there was enough sunlight, there were clusters of young trees with straight, smooth trunks and the damp air became heavy with the smell of the purple blooms bursting from the bushes. Above, the hoots and calls of tree-dwellers high in the canopy rang through the air.

Clara paused and showed the Doctor the map. "We need to find the river and follow it north. The Temple should be at the base of these cliffs."

The path was wide enough here for them to walk side by side, and Clara stole a glances at him occasionally, when he was absorbed in looking at a patch spectacular orange flowers, or a spiky plant with thorns as long as her forearm.

Clara wondered what his life was really like now. "What are you doing? On your side, with Bill and Nardole?"

"I want to take Bill to NASA. There's so much she can learn. Opportunities she'd never get otherwise. I want to put her in the middle of it all."

Clara laughed. "What, the whole universe out there, and you want to take her to regular, dull old NASA?"

"Well, I've a feeling they might be about to find something quite interesting," he admitted.

"That's more like it." She paused, not sure whether to ask her next question. "And what about … Missy?"

He sighed. "I don't know. She's been showing signs of remorse."

"Wait. Did you say _remorse_? She tied me upside down and then pushed me into the sewers. That was before she trapped me in a stinking Dalek husk and tried to get you to murder me. I had nightmares for months after Skaro."

"I didn't say I believed her." He took her hand. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't take more care of you after Skaro." His blue-grey eyes met her. "You should have told me about the nightmares," he said softly.

Clara squeezed his hand. He was right, she probably should have. "There were a lot of things I should said sooner. And you too."

"I know," he said, with a small smile. "I'll do better in the future. Or the past. Wherever we end up."

They reached the river. The stream was just a few meters wide and it was the bluest water Clara had ever seen, running clear in the centre, then at the edges glistening as it played over rocks. It was a little cooler here by the water, a relief after walking through the stifling undergrowth. Clara put a finger to her forehead and found a single bead of sweat, which was odd, because her body didn't usually react to the external environment that way. The Doctor, in his black trousers and heavy black coat didn't seem to be suffering from the temperature at all.

"You don't feel the heat at all, do you?" she said, her legs heavy as she clambered over a rock and down to the river's edge.

"Superior Time Lord physiology," he said. "Excellent stamina." He glanced at her sideways as he spoke, and she swore a sly grin flashed across his face.

"Are you …" she hesitated. From anyone else, she'd peg that as a cheeky double entendre. But he didn't make that kind of play on words, not usually. But his eyes were on her, hungry and probing and she could hardly deny that she found the whole thing a huge turn on. She locked eyes with him. Two could play at that game. "I'll be the judge of that," she said boldly.

His face cracked into a grin, his eyes never leaving hers. "I'll look forward to it," he said, every bit as boldly as she.

"You're _flirting_."

"I was always flirting. Now I mean it." He wound his arms around her, drawing her in. His kiss was hot and urgent, now pulling her into him like he needed her more than air. Finally, he said, "I say we crack a hole in the universe and stay together."

"Okay," she whispered, heat rippling through her. "Let's get these fragments and do some damage, shall we?"

#

After twenty minutes walking beside the burbling river, the bank to their left had turned from a gentle slope to a sheer wall of mud and rock that offered no shade from the relentless heat. The narrowing track forced them to walk single file, and the golden, gritty sand, turned the Doctor's black boots dusty.

Suddenly, the Doctor's pace quickened a few strides, then Clara almost barrelled into him as he came to an abrupt halt.

"Look!" he said, pointing at the base of the cliff as the river curved. Two tall pillars were carved in the golden-sandy rock face either side of a giant door.

They hurried onwards. Carved into the stone to the left of the door were two figures, with their hands almost, but not quite, joined. One was the Aramantha, the Goddess of Eternity, although unlike the statue Clara had stolen —and accidentally smashed— a few weeks ago, she stood upright in profile, her dress long and flowing, one arm loosely by her side with elaborate bangles carved around her wrists, the other arm stretched out towards the figure opposite. Her mate, Amit, the Arbroathian Eternity God, for his part, reached one hand towards his Goddess, one knee bent, the other hand on his heart. His head was bowed reverently, as if to raise his eyes to her beauty was more than he could bear. The door to the Temple was a dull metal, perhaps bronze, and it was weather worn, full of dimples and pocks where the sandy soil from the river bank had pitted its surface.

There was no hope of a stealth approach, nothing to do but to march right up to the door and examine it.

"Do you think—" Clara began, but the Doctor had already whipped out the sonic screwdriver. She stopped and eyed the device, which was bigger, and bluer than the one he'd used when they travelled together. He grinned and raised his eyebrows. The door made a small burbling noise, and then clicked open.

They stepped through into the welcome coolness of a cavernous chamber. The ceiling and walls were carved from the same rough-hewn rock as the cliffs. The floor was made from black and white checkered tiles, each tile at least one of Clara's paces wide, making the floor look like a giant chess board. Seemingly at random on some of the white squares, were squat shapes, polished black rocks carved into mythical creatures. At least Clara hoped they were mythical. The one closest to her was bird-like, its sharp beak open wide in a furious caw, talons shining and deadly, wings tucked by its side. Clara shuddered. She had no love for black birds. The other figures were just as ferocious: a bear-like beast roaring, a terrible beetle with horned pincers.

Clara took a step forward, but the Doctor grabbed her arm. "Wait." He took a yo yo from his pocket and threw it onto a square. Immediately a three-headed serpent flashed to life, mouths wide, sharp fangs glistening. It disappeared from its square, and reappeared in the square in which the yo yo had landed. Its swung its heads towards Clara and the Doctor, hissing, before it became stone once more.

The Doctor and Clara exchanged worried glances. The checkered floor stretched all the way across the chamber with no way around. The Doctor took a coin from his pocket, and threw it into another square. This time the bear roared to life and reappeared in the square where the coin had landed. The Doctor did this three more times with the same result, his brow pulled into a knot of concentration, then on the fifth and sixth coins, there was no movement from any of the beasts on the board.

Clara watched as he worked, fascinated by the way he intermittently scowled and then let a smile creep onto his face. She looked at him expectantly.

"It's a game," he said. "I've found a pathway. I think."

"You _think?_ "

The Doctor stepped suddenly onto the board. "See?" He offered her a hand, and she stepped into the square with him. "If we step only on the squares that—"

Every carved creature on the board suddenly burst into life, filling the chamber with a fury of roaring, snarling, and hissing.

"Not quite what I expected," the Doctor admitted, gripping her hand tightly. "Ready?"

Clara nodded. The Doctor pointed to a black square, and they leaped across the board into it. And so it went, the Doctor guiding her through the cacophony of growling, leaping from square to square. Clara risked a glance back. The grisly game pieces were no longer attached to any particular square, they were slithering and prowling around the board. The snake's coiled body was now stretched out, its tail thrashing. One of its heads had its fangs sunk into the back leg of a snarling black hound. The beast sunk its own teeth into the snake's body, and both the snake and hound thrashed together, tumbling across the board towards the Doctor and Clara.

"One big jump and we're clear," the Doctor called. "Can you make it?"

Clara weighed the distance between where they stood and the edge of the board. Even for the Doctor's long legs, it would be a stretch. The slavering bear appeared in the square directly behind them, roaring, its breath hot on her neck. _No choice_. She gripped the Doctor's hand as hard as she ever had.

"Let's do it," she said. As he sprung forward, she leaped too. They were scrambling through the air and then tumbling downwards, his momentum carrying her. But it wasn't enough. She lost his hand, and her feet smacked into the board's final square. A rush of air began at her feet, something sharp clawing at her legs. She screamed.

Then the Doctor tugged her forwards, and they fell tangled together to the ground. As they left the board, the noise in the chamber vanished as abruptly as it began. All she could hear was the sound of him breathing, saying her name. She opened her eyes. He'd fallen more or less on top of her.

"Clara?"

"I'm fine."

He paused for a moment, seemed to be contemplating something, and then got to his feet.

Clara stood up and brushed herself off. The game pieces were dark stone again now, scattered across the board.

"We'll find another way out," she said, shuddering.

#

The Doctor examined a door at the back of the chamber. It was always the way with Lost Temples, wasn't it? Deadly traps behind ancient doors, dark corridors, and the dank smell of dust and decay. This wasn't the first dingy trap he'd crept around over the years. He opened the door, which wasn't locked. That was never a good sign, because it usually meant the makers wanted you to rush through. Well, he was already starting to see the personality of this particular trap-maker. He shifted his sonic screwdriver into the pocket of his trousers, and took his jacket off.

Clara joined him as he threw the jacket through the door. A hundred arrows tore through the fabric in the seconds it was suspended in the air, before the whole thing clattered to the ground.

"I hope you weren't fond of that jacket," she said.

He kicked it to one side as they passed through the corridor. The door at the end opened onto a set of stone steps, winding upwards in a spiral. They followed the steps up, and up, and up, and finally emerged into a circular tower.

In the centre of the chamber two life-sized statues were seated side by side on a pair of thrones, but one faced east, the other west. The chamber was smaller than the TARDIS console room, carved from the same sandy stone as the statues, but it was airy and bright. Two arches were cut in the walls in front of each throne.

"Amit and Aramantha. The Goddess and God of Eternity," Clara told him. He circled the thrones, glancing at the open arches as he did. One opened onto jagged rocks, certain death for anyone trying to leave that way. But the other was above a pool of deep blue water joining the river they had followed here. The Doctor's sunglasses measured the depth of the pool, and he tucked that away for future reference, before turning to see what Clara was doing.

She stood examining the pair of white marble statues. Her hair was tied back into an untidy ponytail, her shorts covered in dust, and her black vest top clung damply to her in the humid air. She was absolutely the most captivating thing he'd ever seen.

She turned to him, her eyes sparkling. She pointed at the statue's hands, linked together on the single armrest between the two thrones. When he looked again, he could see that instead of having individual fingers, the pair of deities had been carved with their little fingers merging into one, and on that hybrid finger, was a ring with a gem as black as forever.

"I don't think it's his eyes," Clara said, staring hard at Amit. "It's the ring."

The Doctor rolled up his red shirt-sleeves and scanned the ring. Clara was right, the ring was giving off waves of energy.

Clara made a small gasp and clutched her throat. The chain around her neck had gone taut, and the pendant, wrapped in cloth, was tugging her towards the statue.

He looped his arm around her waist to hold her firm. With his free hand, he continued to scan the fragment. The waveforms around the ring fluctuated wildly.

Then a high, melodious voice filled the air. "Have you come to free us?" The voice came from Aramantha, her pale stone lips moving now, her eyes blinking. Her long gown rustled and the stone seemed to ripple.

"Are you trapped?" Clara said, her eyes wide with wonder.

"We wished only to love one another." This was Amit, speaking from the other side of the thrones. "But so many were against us. My father and his advisers, the Queen. They told us it would tear our lands apart."

"But why?"

"Because I was promised to another, a pale queen from a cold land, whom I did not love. They told me I should not be distracted from my destiny by matters of the heart. But how could I rule without the woman I love at my side? How could I _live_ without her?"

Aramantha continued the tale. "We fled together, but Amit's father's men found us. This is our punishment. Together locked in stone, facing freedom, unable to leave, and never able to look at one another."

The Dark Star fragment in the ring on Amit and Aramantha's joined finger began to thrum. The Doctor could feel vibrations in his chest each time the gem pulsed. "The ring. It's binding you?"

"Yes." Aramantha said.

"Clara, unwrap the pendant."

Clara fumbled with the cloth around the dark gem. A whirling black vortex streamed from the ring towards the necklace. The Doctor held Clara tight, as the darkness consumed them both. Then with a blinding flash, both the gem and the statues were gone.

He held Clara a moment longer, and she turned around to face him, hugging him closer, burying her face in his red shirt. He could feel the gem pressed between them, hot on his chest, tingling, powerful.

"Clara," he whispered. "You better cover the pendant again."

Hands trembling, she tucked it back inside its cloth pouch. They both saw it was a little larger than it had been.

Aramantha and Amit stood framed in front of one of the arches. They were locked in an embrace, backed by a glorious blue sky.

"My love," Aramantha said. "I can hold you in my arms at last." Her statue had been carved in white stone, but in the flesh Aramantha was gloriously black-skinned, a coal-eyed goddess.

"What will you do?" Clara asked.

"Run, far and run hard. And we will love each other well." Amit said. He looked around the room. "We must go. It's not safe here."

Even as he spoke, whirling tendrils of dark smoke wound up from the empty stone thrones. The air became loud with an orgy of flapping wings, and a dank animal smell filled the air.

The door they had come through slammed shut.

Aramantha looked out of the arch and down at the water below. She took Amit's hand, and kissed him. "Together, my love," she said. They plunged downwards.

The air was screeching now, as the chamber filled with winged fury, creatures with sharp teeth and red eyes glaring as they flapped in a spiral above their heads.

The Doctor pulled Clara to the edge of the arch, and glanced down at the dizzying waters below. He could just see Amit and Aramantha in the bubbling white water downstream.

Clara's eyes were alive, her face flushed. He kissed her quickly, a stolen kiss that sent his heart racing much harder than the thought of plunging into the waters below.

He took her hand. "Together," he breathed.

"Always," she said, and they were plunging and falling together, rushing through the air. He lost her hand in the seconds before they hit the water. A shock jolted through him, the rush of air became a slosh of water, and his speed slowed, but he continued downwards. He immediately started kicking and thrusting up, using his arms to pull himself to the surface, eyes wide, looking for Clara.

Caught in the current, he was swept downstream until the river slowed.

"Doctor!" Clara was already sitting on the bank, legs out straight.

He pulled himself from the water, squelched his way across the bank, and collapsed beside her. "Aramantha and Amit?" he could only manage a gasp.

Clara pointed to the opposite bank, where Aramantha and Amit stood hand in hand.

The Doctor raised a hand.

Amit called, "We can never thank you enough!"

"Just make each other happy," Clara said.

The Doctor watched them disappear into the trees beyond the riverbank.

"Do you think they'll be okay? We don't know how long it's been since they were trapped up there. It could have been last week or a thousand years ago," Clara said.

"I don't think time matters. They're together." He ran his fingers through his hair, plastered flat across his head now. His shirt clung to his chest, and his trousers were heavy with water.

Clara, toyed with the pendant, wrapped in its cloth covering. "What about us?" she said, biting her lip, her eyes suddenly filled with trepidation. "Are we going to get a happy ending?"

"Clara, I told you once love is a promise. And I promise you this, nothing will stop us."

The sun was setting now, filling the horizon with reds and mauves, the white clouds darkening in the evening sky.

He leaned across and kissed her, and again he felt that tingle of arousal, that signal that he wanted her, needed her, more than he'd needed anything in a long time.

She put her hand to his soaked shirt. "Let's get back to the Diner and get out of these wet clothes, shall we?" she whispered.

"That gets my vote," he replied, his hearts racing.

As they rushed through the jungle, he mentally bargained with the unpredictable rip in spacetime. It should be stronger now they had another fragment. Perhaps it would stay open longer. Perhaps what they had was enough, and the tear would stay open for good now? At least it could give him another hour. _Surely_ the universe could give him that.

When the Diner was in sight, Clara picked up the pace further. "How long do you think we have?" she asked, her face flushed and beautiful.

"I don't know," he said, on the threshold between the jungle and the Diner.

Inside the Diner, the ante-room was just the same as it had been all those years ago; an American diner, with red seats and a picture of Elvis on the doors. But he hardly took that in, as Clara was kissing him now, urgently, her hands fumbling with the small buttons on his red shirt, then helping him out of that shirt, her lips never leaving his. He pushed her back against the counter. He wanted her, gods, he wanted her. But, he realised, he wanted her slowly. He wanted to explore everything with her. He wanted _time_. And he of all men in the universe, he should at least have that, shouldn't he?

"Clara," he whispered, but even before he could tell her they should wait, that they deserved more than this, the tear winked into existence. Clara made a strangled groan. "No, not _now_!"

"It's alright, Clara. We'll find time. To do things properly, I promise."

The last thing he saw before the tear pulled him back to his own time-frame, was Clara holding his red shirt in her hands.

#

Bill Potts burst into her mentor's study, 3000 hard won words on free will versus determinism—with Harvard style referencing—in her hand. She immediately stopped, and put her hands over her eyes.

"Woah! Where's your jacket and shirt?" Bill hadn't seen the Doctor without a coat, never mind without his shirt on. She peeked through her fingers at him. His hair was wet and wild, plastered to his head in places, and sticking up in others. His boots pooled with water. "Oh god, what happened, did you fall in a pond or something?"

"It's a long story…"

"Do I wanna hear it?"

"Probably not."

Bill started to back out of the door, and bumped into Nardole.

"What's—" Nardole raised a finger at the Doctor. "You've got no shirt on."

"Thank you Nardole, for that astute observation. Both of you wait there," he commanded, before disappearing into the TARDIS.

"What's _that_ about?" Nardole asked Bill.

"No idea. He looked like a drowned kitten."

"I heard that!" an irate voice came from the TARDIS.

Bill slapped her essay down on the Doctor's desk. "He just gets weirder."

Nardole folded his arms and twitched his nose. "You don't know the half of it."

#

When Ashildr returned to the Diner, Clara greeted her with a smile. "Where have you been? Anywhere nice?" she said. "I met a friend," Ashildr said, with no intention of sharing any more of what she'd been doing. "How about you?"

"Yeah, well just hanging around, really."

Clara's voice sounded forced and tight, and her hair was a mess, and Ashildr was pretty fed up with being treated like an idiot.

"Really?" Ashildr said, strolling through Diner towards the console room. She paused by a set of four seats around a plastic table, her eyes settling on a red shirt. Glancing at Clara, she picked up the shirt. "Your face is almost as red as this shirt. Anything you want to share?"

Clara snatched the shirt. "No. Nothing. Just doing some laundry," she said.

Ashildr scoffed. "That's the worst bare-faced lie yet. Really, do you think I mind who you bring back here?" She paused, and stared hard at the shirt. "As long as it isn't—" Would she dare? Ashildr really wouldn't put it past her. After all they'd discussed about how dangerous the Doctor was. About how the hybrid prophecy was toxic. Deadly if it was real, and just about as dangerous if it wasn't because so many people believed it. It was a no win scenario as far as Ashildr could see.

"Ashildr!" Clara exclaimed. "How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not seeing him."

"The hyb—"

"Seriously, Ashildr, don't even say it." Clara's voice darkened. "I know what I'm doing!"

Ashildr watched Clara stomp away, and she sighed. They had been through a lot, she and Clara. They had travelled together for a hundred years, many more years than Clara had spent with _him,_ but it always came back to this. The Daleks had it right when they called him the Predator. Once he had his sights on someone, they could never get away. Ashildr had felt guilty, sneaking off to meet with the Portant of Drellmar behind Clara's back, but now she was glad that she had. She had a bad feeling about whatever Clara was up to. She couldn't help thinking they would need all the help they could get.


	10. Chapter 10: The Masked Ball

"What are you up to?" Ashildr asked, stepping into the Diner's walk-in wardrobe. Clara stood, in a full-length crimson dress, with one foot on a chair, fastening the buckle on a shockingly high, diamante-studded Jimmy Choo sandal.

Clara straightened up and tried to look casual. "Oh, just trying on a dress."

"I can see that. And it's rather splendid. But why?"

Clara's dress crinkled and swayed wonderfully as she turned on the spot to face Ashildr. The bodice, woven with delicate applique beading, was modestly high necked, while the back vanished into a sensuous, low V.

"Um," Clara said, wondering how to work her way out of this one. "No reason, really, just …"

Ashildr picked up a silver filigree mask from the chair, and pressed it to her face. "Oh, I do love a Masked Ball. They were all the rage in the fifteen hundreds. Haven't been to a good one in centuries." She lowered the mask, and fixed Clara with a penetrating glare. "You wouldn't be thinking of sneaking off without me again, would you?"

"Of course not!" Clara said, with as much indignance as she could muster, given that was exactly what she'd intended to do. "Remember the Venflaxian Ambassador?" she went on, thinking on her feet, "she was so grateful for our help with the AI problem, she sent us an invitation to the Strangers Ball. Biggest annual event in the Aquarius B Supercluster." Not _strictly_ true, but the Ambassador had been only too happy to extend an invitation. When Clara had asked.

"No ulterior motives, then?" Ashildr narrowed her eyes, shooting Clara the same suspicious glare she'd given her last week after finding the red shirt on a chair in the Diner.

"You're so suspicious."

"Hm," Ashildr said. "That's because _you_ have a habit of lying."

"This is important, Ashildr." Since last week, Clara couldn't think of much else beside the Doctor. The Dark Star fragments were building a bridge between them, pulling them together, she could feel it. Whatever had been between them when they traveled together, the deep friendship, the bond that had grown so powerful she hadn't known where he ended and she began, all of it paled in comparison to what she felt now. When he kissed her, he'd unleashed something primal in her soul, leaving a physical ache in her chest.

"He's dangerous," Ashildr was saying. "He's a thief who ran away with a time machine, and he's never stopped running ever since."

Clara shrugged. He _was_ a thief. He'd stolen her heart and run away with it. There really wasn't much Clara could say to refute anything Ashildr said. All she knew was that they needed time. Time to be together. Time to love each other. And she wasn't going to let anything stand in the way.

Clara had scoured the cosmos for more fragments of Dark Star. She'd discovered the second-largest fragment was owned by Gadrin DeFell, a Ballaxian Regent who liked partying far more than he liked the responsibility of ruling his planet. He would be attending the Strangers Ball. Clara had sent another message to the Doctor, this time using the Diner's psychic interface to stream direct to the psychic paper. The chance of a masked ball was simply too delicious to pass over. And she had to see him, anyway. There was another fragment, even bigger than the one owned by DeFell. That was going to be harder to snatch and she'd need his help.

Ashildr was riffling through the rows of dresses hanging in the wardrobe. She pulled out a long, black taffeta dress, with silver swirling applique details on the bodice and held it to her body.

"No reason for me not to come, then?" Ashildr said, her tone dripping with passive aggression, daring Clara to defy her.

Clara forced a smile. "None at all."

 **The Strangers Ball, The Summer Palace, Ballaxia.**

On the evening of the Ball, Clara and Ashildr set the Diner down in the Gardens of the Summer Palace, and wound their way along graveled pathways edged by deep-purple box hedges and past burnished red lawns. The perfectly kept flower beds boasted row after row of blue flowers, with elongated petals reaching to the sky, filling the summer air with the scent of a thousand blooms.

Ahead, the palace was six stories tall, made from black marble streaked with flashes of green. Clara had endured a Year Nine field trip to the Palace of Versailles in her Coal Hill days, but the Palace at Ballaxia dwarfed the French extravagance in both size and splendor. A sweep of stone steps led up to a wide facade, with row after row of tall windows.

Ashildr's black dress flowed elegantly behind her, and the gravel crunched underfoot as they walked. Clara linked arms with her friend. She had to admit, this was more fun together. Ashildr's mask was black, covering the top half of her face, and would have been quite highway robber but for the sequined edge and a spray of elegant feathers sweeping up into her hair. Clara's own mask was made of burnished silver, with delicate swirls, and jewels dripping from the side like sparkling tears.

The wealthy of the galaxy had turned out in force for the Strangers Ball. An ornate black and gold carriage, pulled by two perfectly matched beasts, more lion than horse, stopped in front of the steps. Two party-goers stepped out, also perfectly matched in ochre dresses. Their arms were covered in fine fur and their masks perfectly shaped for their feline faces. Clara had met Cheetah-people before, but never such an elegant pair. A bulky Andorian, stuffed inside a black suit, his blue face partly covered with a plain black mask, showed the ladies up the steps.

Next to arrive was a small, sporty shuttle. It zoomed over the palace roof, and hovered over a red lawn that seemed set aside for the purpose. The shuttle powered vertically downwards, tucking its wings in as it landed. The roof zipped backwards revealing a figure dressed in black, who leaped out and raced around the other side of the shuttle to assist a silver-skinned woman in a tight dress pour herself out of the passenger seat. The pilot threw his keys in the air to be caught by the valet, a red-skinned Zocci, who with some difficulty, heaved his short frame into the pilot seat.

Clara and Ashildr were at the bottom of the steps now, among races from the far reaches of the galaxy. An elegant woman representing the Trees of Cheem, Green-skinned Venflaxians, and a whole host of races Clara didn't know.

Clara nodded to Ashildr, and they walked up the steps with the Venflaxians. An Ood on the doorway checked the guest list, _Clara Oswald plus One_ , and nodded them through.

The ballroom was grander than Clara had imagined. Chandeliers glittered from the ceiling, the carpet was deep red, and an orchestra played.

All the guests wore masks of some kind. Clara searched for two people she hoped to find. Gadrin DeFell, the Bellaxian Prince Regent she hoped to relieve of one of his jewels, and the Doctor, whom she would be relieved to see.

There was no sign of the Doctor, but it was hard to miss the Prince Regent. He was a barrel of a man, his skin was a dusty orange and he wore his sandy hair swept across his head. His stumpy hands clasped a walking cane in front of him. He suddenly gave off a bellowing laugh, and the cluster of people around him erupted into laughter too.

Clara realised Ashildr's eyes were on her.

"Looking for someone?" she said, voice laced with suspicion.

"No. Just—"

Ashildr sniffed. "I don't mind. Since you have a habit of dashing off and leaving me, I've invited a friend."

"What?" Clara exclaimed. "If they're not on the list, I don't think they'll get in."

"Not a problem," Ashildr said over her shoulder. "I'll get us a drink."

So, Ashildr was paying her back. She couldn't really blame her, but if Ashildr wasn't so distrustful of the Doctor, wouldn't _have_ to lie about any of this. Why did Ashildr have to put her in this position?

Clara sighed and turned to watch the Regent. The people around him moved nervously, with an eye always on where he was. A young, thin, purple-skinned man brought the Regent a plate of food, bowed low, and stood waiting. The Regent took a bite of something from the plate and then spat it at the young man's feet. He raised his cane as if to strike the man. The young man flinched and scrambled to clear up the food. The Regent roared something Clara couldn't hear. The courtiers around him exchanged fearful glances as he crashed his cane into the floor right next to the young man.

Clara would have to get closer to this repulsive Regent to find the Dark Star fragment. She'd survived the inside of a Dalek, so swallowing hard, hoping the Doctor got the message and wishing he was here in spite of her bravado, she moved closer to the Regent.

Up close, he was even less appealing. His teeth gleamed in a wide-lipped leer. His fat hands seemed to find a way to touching every woman in the group around him. He pushed his way past other dignitaries.

Clara accepted a canape from a waiting Ood, and moved closer. The Regent pulled a small communication device from his pocket.

A tall, thin orange-skinned man shuddered almost imperceptibly. "Your Excellency," he said, "is it wise to send a live message? It's only a rumour, after all."

The Regent glowered as the adviser bowed and backed away. He continued to fiddle with his comms device for a few moments, and then slipped it back into his coat pocket with a satisfied nod.

He rubbed his thumb across the top of the walking stick. A dark gem, set in a silver casing topped the cane. Clara needed a closer look at that, and was trying to figure out how when she realised the Regent's small, beady eyes had fallen on her. He offered her a smile, and then whispered to the man who had spoken to him earlier.

The tall orange-skinned man walked over to her, in an unhurried, dignified manner. He bowed low in front of Clara. "The Most Excellent Regent of Bellaxia will dance with you."

Clara blinked several times. _Be careful what you wish for_. She gave a small curtsy in return, although the skin at the back of her neck was crawling. "I would be delighted."

Up close, the Regent was really quite foul. He was a little taller than Clara in her heels, and his eyes showed no shame or restraint in the way they trawled up and down her dress. He shoved his cane at one of his entourage, and it was then Clara knew for sure that the gem at the top, glistening black, dark as night, was the very thing she had come for. The Regent put one hand on her waist, and drew the other around her back, his puffy palms finding her bare skin. She tried not to shudder.

The Regent guided her onto the dance floor. "So, what do you think of my little party, my dear?"

Clara tried to keep a decent distance between their bodies, but the Regent's hand was firmly on her back, drawing her towards him.

"Your party is wonderful," she said between gritted teeth. If the Regent noticed her discomfort, he didn't seem to mind.

He began the dance, and he knew where to put his feet, Clara had to give him that. It was where he was putting his hands that bothered her. She tried to catch a glimpse of the cane, but the Regent swept her across the dance floor at a surprisingly robust pace for a man his size.

She got her hand on his chest, and tried to wedge him away, but he seemed to bend in closer to her.

Her skin crawled properly now. She looked around for Ashildr, but she was nowhere to be seen.

The Regent pressed his face close to her ear. "I so rarely meet human women these days. It would be a shame to let this opportunity pass by."

Clara laughed tightly. She tried again to ease him away, but he pulled her closer. His hand inched further down her back.

"Please don't do that," she said firmly. But she was trapped in his arms.

He leered into her ear, "Woman want me. Whether they know it or not."

Clara tensed. A swift series of punches to the solar plexus, a kick to the groin. Then she'd have to try to get the cane and run. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than being pawed by this disgusting oaf. Where was Ashildr? They would need to leave fast.

The Regent's hand was on her back, and to her horror, it began to slip further down, _inside_ her dress.

Then his expression turned suddenly pained. Clara looked up over his shoulder. The Doctor, unmistakably the Doctor, with his silver curls, in a black mask covering the top half of his face, stood behind the Regent. The Regent's hand was off her back now and in the Doctor's crushing grip.

The Doctor cast the Regent aside with a flick of his wrist and swept Clara into his arms, his steel-blue eyes locking with hers. "I think this is _my_ dance," he said, and they spun together across the dance floor, falling into step as if they had been dancing together for years.

The Regent scowled and stomped away, shaking his hand.

"You've made an enemy," Clara said, hardly sparing a glance in the Regent's direction. She had eyes only for the Doctor now.

"I'm sure I don't care," the Doctor replied, two-stepping her skillfully across the dance floor, weaving in and out of the other guests.

He wore a dashing black suit and tie. "I'm really pleased to see you," she said, losing herself in how good he smelled, and his stormy eyes. "But how did you know me, among all these people?"

"When do I not know you?" he said, and he spun her in his arms across the dance floor.

#

Outside the ballroom, Drellmar made her way up the steps. She was dressed all in white. A white mask covered her whole face and swept up over her sensitive ear-slots, into false elf-like ears. The mask amused her, but this wasn't going to be easy. To be around so many untamed minds would be painful. But, the ancient-young human woman had asked, so Drellmar came. Ashildr and she had met the previous week by chance, or so it seemed, and spent a pleasant afternoon in one another's company. They spoke of Dark Stars and Quantum Shades, and Drellmar had not expected to hear from Ashildr again. To receive this invitation had been most unexpected.

The Ood on the door checked his list. "I'm sorry, your name isn't on my guest list." His timeline aura was green, and moved around him in a single thin line.

Drellmar spoke softly, pointing a delicate white finger at the list. "Yes it is, Gentle One, my name is right there."

The Ood looked again. "I beg your pardon. Your name is right here. Enjoy the evening."

Drellmar bowed to the Ood. It was a Portant's gift to see timelines in all their glorious colours, long and short. It was a Portant's curse that so often they could do nothing when those timelines were to be cut short. Illness and accidents were part of life, and although Drellmar didn't know why, or how, she knew this Oods song was almost sung.

When Drellmar was young, she had railed against the Temple's teaching of non-interference. But over the years she had learned the why behind the lesson. She could not save everyone, and trying would drive her mad. She'd learned to pick her battles.

As ever, when Drellmar walked into the dance hall people drifted aside. It wasn't a conscious thing, Drellmar had realised. People just preferred the spaces where she was not. Unless they wanted to do business with her of course, then they would endure her company long enough to get a deal done. But Ashildr seemed different. She hadn't shied away. In fact, Ashildr had sought her out. That didn't happen very often.

Drellmar searched for Ashildr in the crowded ballroom, keeping her mental walls up so not to become overwhelmed by the auras swirling around the guests. Drellmar could manage it for a while, but it was mentally exhausting.

She felt a warm hand on her arm.

"Drellmar," Ashildr said. "I'm glad you came."

Drellmar smiled under her mask, although no one would see it. "I am grateful you asked," she said, bowing her head very slightly. "I assume you need my help?"

"Well, yes," Ashildr's eyes flicked downwards, before she added, "But that's not the only reason I asked you. I … I wanted to see you again."

Drellmar searched the young woman's eyes and found no deception there.

Ashildr's aura was long-lived, longer than most in the room, longer even than a Portant's. Multiple purple lines circled around her many, many times in an unbroken, twisting loop. Often, Drellmar found immortals exhausting, as their hot minds spilled relentlessly into her own. But Ashildr was different. Her mind was soothing, like the shade cast by the cherry tree in spring.

When Drellmar placed a light hand on Ashildr's arm, the young woman didn't shy away.

"We should talk," Drellmar said.

Ashildr nodded, and Drellmar followed her to a quiet corner. Ashildr seemed to radiate calmness.

Drellmar's curiosity finally got the better of her reserve. "Most say a Portant walks with a dark shadow. Yet you do not shy away."

"I ran a refugee center on Earth. I learned to see beyond the scars we wear."

A bewildered flutter hovered in Drellmar's chest. What was this? Kindness? She shook her head very slightly to clear it.

Ashildr's tone changed. "Oh, that's just typical. I should have known." Her lips thinned into a sharp line. She crossed her arms.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, I did know, really," Ashildr went on. "I just _hoped_ Clara wouldn't be so stupid." Ashildr pointed at Clara, wearing a long, red dress, her auburn hair long and loose on her shoulders. The same young woman who had sought Drellmar out to exchange the Dark Star fragments for kyber crystals.

A mix of anger and fear spilled from Ashildr. "The Doctor," she said, waving a hand at the man dancing with Clara.

A physical jolt ran through Drellmar when she saw the Doctor again. The Time Lord was impossible to miss, with his complex aura swirling around him in a magnificent colours. She'd often dreamed of those tangled, many coloured lines, but never expected to see them again.

Clara's aura was unique too, but different from the Doctor's. She was surrounded by angry, jagged lines, in bright greens, sharp reds, and violent blues, and many other colours besides. One black line looped around her body. The mark of a Quantum Shade, frozen in time. Occasionally, the black line stuttered in and out of focus. It was like nothing Drellmar seen before.

As the Doctor and Clara pressed their bodies together and found a rhythm, their separate auras blurred and merged, becoming an iridescent glow around them both.

"Your friends seem … in tune," Drellmar said. At the temple, long ago, Drellmar had learned about _Saw-el-Ma:_ those destined to be joined, their auras so perfectly in sync that it was painful for them to be apart.

"They can't help themselves," Ashildr went on. "I feel terrible saying this, but they're toxic together."

"Are they?" Drellmar looked back at Ashildr, trying to hide her surprise.

"They push each other to extremes. It's not good for the universe, and it's not good for them either." Ashildr swirled a delicate pink drink in a champagne glass. She put it back on the table without taking a sip, and sighed.

Drellmar put a hesitant hand on Ashildr's arm. "Do you fear being alone?"

Ashildr's face was hidden behind her mask, but her voice was heavy with sadness. "Immortality isn't a gift. It's an endless procession of other people's deaths. Clara is …" Ashildr just shook her head. "I hoped she'd be with me a long time."

Drellmar nodded. She understood only too well. "If I had a friend, I wouldn't want to lose her either," she said softly.

Ashildr let her breath out in a small puff, her eyes distant for a moment. "I know Clara has to go back to the Trap Street one day. But she's not ready yet. I'm not ready. And every time _that man_ flits into someone's life, things go bad."

"I do not believe he _brings_ the trouble."

"It's never far behind him."

Ashildr's eyes seemed filled with sadness. Drellmar knew that emptiness. The burden the long-lived bore on their shoulders. But looking at the Doctor and Clara dancing, Drellmar saw two souls in perfect sync. Who could blame them for fighting to be together? Yet even among the colours of their joined aura, that stuttering black line still circled Clara.

"I think something is weakening the barrier between Clara and the Quantum Shade," she said, turning to Ashildr. "But I will help, if I can." She would help because long ago the Doctor had helped her. She would help, because Ashildr asked it of her. But, she reminded herself, she should expect nothing in return from this curious immortal woman, who would undoubtedly turn her face away before long.

Without warning, a cold blast swept through her mind. Darkness shrouded the room for an instant, silence dripping from the walls.

"Drellmar, what's wrong?" Ashildr gripped her hand.

"Something's coming," she gasped.

#

The Doctor danced, forcing his anger with the creature who'd had his filthy paws on Clara aside, letting himself get lost in her smile. He kept an eye on the Regent, of course who was scowling in the corner and ordering his staff around.

Clara seemed like fire in his arms, her red dress billowing as she turned, her shoes sparkling as bright as her smile. The bare skin of her back under his fingers sent a tingling rush through him. She was beautiful, and perfect, and in his arms at last. He fought back the impulse to kiss her. They came here to do a job. But she smelled insanely good and her lips were inches from his.

The music revved up a notch, making it harder than ever to hear, and even when he pulled her close and asked her about the fragment, she didn't seem to hear him.

"Do you know where the Dark Star fragment is?" he asked again.

"What?"

"The fragment—"

Clara looked up at him, and shrugged an adorable 'I can't hear you' kind of shrug.

It was no good, they'd have to find somewhere to talk. He led her from the dance floor towards a door at the back of the room marked 'No Entry'.

"It's quieter," he explained. He'd left the TARDIS through here to avoid any nonsense with guest lists.

As they stepped into the hallway beyond the ballroom, Clara said, "That disgusting excuse for a Regent, Gadrin DeFell has the Dark Star. It's that big gem at the top of his cane."

Clara froze in her tracks when she saw the TARDIS, shaking her head as if she was overwhelmed to see it again.

"This blue box was the gateway into the best years of my life," she said. "The Diner is home, of course, but—" She reached out her fingers and touched the side of the time ship. "So big, so blue, so beautiful," she whispered.

On instinct, he reached past her shoulder and laced his fingers with hers. The gentle tingle running through the TARDIS shell made her gasp with delight. She turned her head just enough to let him glimpse the pink in her cheeks below the filigree mask.

Standing close behind her, almost mesmerised, overcome with a desire to touch her, he ghosted his fingers along her spine.

"Doctor," she whispered. "I might start to think you have dishonorable intentions."

He leaned closer. "You might be right."

She turned full around. She'd taken off her mask, and reached up to remove his. She let both clatter to the floor.

"I see you," she whispered. "Only you. All this time. There's only ever been you."

Hearts racing now, he eased her gently against the TARDIS into the tingling energy field. She made a tiny gasp. As she did, he kissed her, pressing his body to hers, so the tickle of energy from the blue shell washed over him too, heightening every sensation.

A moan left her lips, and now she kissed him hungrily, pulling him closer, drawing him in. His body responded, tingling, wanting, pressing into her.

"My Clara," he whispered. She was all he ever wanted. All he could see, hear, or feel. Nothing existed but her lips, her tongue. Her bare back was exquisite torment under his fingertips. He wanted more. All of her. He groaned, almost losing control, at the edge of reason. She was so warm, so vibrant, so alive. Her face flushed almost as crimson as her dress.

Then he pulled back, frowning. He was letting his brain get fogged with desire, and that was dangerous, because that's how he missed things. "Clara, is something changing with you?" he said, studying her face.

"Beside you turning me on?" she said, seeking his lips again, tugging at his jacket, pressing herself to him in all the places he wanted to be pressed.

His chest lurched. Her biological state should be _locked_. None of these physiological responses should be happening. He was a fool. "Clara, turn around."

"What? No," she said, her voice almost a whine.

He spun her around anyway, and lifted her hair. The numbers on the tattoo were flickering. "The chrono-lock. I think its unstable. How long has this kind of thing been happening?"

"Um. A few times. Around you, mainly. What does it mean? Will I get my heartbeat back?"

"Yes. For roughly half a second, then the Quantum Shade completes its contract."

Clara swore.

The next moment, Doctor turned sharply as the door behind them opened.

Gadrin DeFell, the Regent of Bellaxia, along with his reedy adviser, lumbered into the room.

The thin man cleared his throat. "His Excellency the Regent of Bellaxia, Head of the Five Houses, heir to the Sacred Chalice of Stern, will speak with you."

"I think that will necessitate him opening his own mouth," the Doctor said, scowling.

"His Excellency is prepared to overlook the gentleman's indiscretion." The adviser spoke directly to Clara.

" _His_ indiscretion?" Clara almost spat.

The adviser looked slightly bewildered. "Touching his Royal Excellency without an express invitation. His hand is quite bruised. But, his most generous Excellency will overlook this. Provided _you_ accompany him now."

Gadrin DeFell, Regent of Bellaxia, curled his orange hand around the top of his cane, and stared lewdly at Clara.

Clara had her eyes on the Regent's hand, wrapped around the Dark Star. The Doctor could almost see the calculations run through her head, as they ran through his own. How to defuse this. How to get hold of the cane. He could see a few ways this could play out, but none of the acceptable ones involved DeFell getting those horrible hands on Clara.

"Do you know what I think?" Clara said, her eyes on fire now. "I think that because you're in a position of power, you think you can do what the hell you want. Somewhere in your twisted head, because lackeys like him fawn over you, you haven't clocked that you disgust people."

DeFell made a growling rumble, his face becoming a deeper orange. He raised his cane and then smashed it into the ground. "How dare you!"

"How dare _you!_ " Clara roared right back.

The Doctor blinked several times. This was his Clara, bold, unbowed. The tall adviser looked startled, but the ghost of admiration flickered across his gaunt face.

The Doctor was pretty impressed himself. "She may be small, but she's fierce," he told the adviser, who gave a faint nod. Clara's eyes never left the staff as she eased the necklace out of its cloth covering.

"You are a poor excuse for a leader, and a man!" Clara goaded him. "You have sweaty, pudgy hands. And your breath stinks."

The Regent raised the cane, spittle flying from his lips, his eyes glaring. "You dare—"

Clara snatched the cane, yanking it so sharply from DeFell's hands that he stumbled to all fours. Clara clashed the gem in the top of the staff to her chest. The cane's top seemed to melt away, and the Dark Star fragment became part of her necklace.

"Guards!" the Regent roared.

The Doctor grabbed Clara's hand. "We better go."

Clara turned back to the Regent. "Hang on." She cracked the cane down hard on his knuckles. The Regent bellowed in pain. "That's for putting your hands on me," she said calmly.

She glanced at the Doctor, almost guiltily. But he just shrugged. After the satisfaction of punching a racist, he was in no position to judge any lesson Clara wanted to dish out.

Clara smashed the cane into the fingers of the Regent's other hand. "And that's for every other woman you've ever pawed."

#

Ashildr had watched Clara and the Doctor dancing in perfect time. Like they were two parts of one whole. Was it selfish to try to keep them apart? Drellmar had implied as much, and Ashildr couldn't help wondering if it was true.

Then Doctor and Clara had stopped dancing, and hand in hand, headed towards a door at the side of the ballroom. They were like teenagers, Ashildr had decided, sneaking off for a snog behind the bike sheds. Did she have the right to interfere? They were adults. But she couldn't shake that sinking feeling in her chest that told her no good would come of this. The hybrid hung over them still.

The glittering evening spun on. The orchestra played a jazzy number, lifting the energy in the room. Even past her mask, Ashildr could see what a strain it was for Drellmar to be here. Her hands trembled very slightly, although she tried to conceal it. Yet she had come, and she seemed willing to help, even though there were no easy answers.

On the dance floor, two feline ladies, in dusky yellow dresses, danced together elegantly.

Ashildr pulled absently at feathers springing from her own mask. Then she turned to Drellmar. "Do you dance?"

Ashildr thought she registered surprise in the pale woman's reaction, although it was hard to tell under the mask.

"A Portant on the dance floor. This would not make a pleasant evening, I fear."

"What do you mean?"

"Look around you."

Ashildr glanced around. Although the ballroom was crowded, the tables either side of them were empty. No one stood within twenty paces.

Drellmar's misty blue eyes seemed so sad. Was that what she meant by walking with a dark shadow? Were people afraid of this kind, gentle woman, without knowing why? Is that why they moved away? What a terrible fate, to always walk alone.

Well, Ashildr wasn't having any of it. She took Drellmar's hand. "Tell me, Drellmar, would you _like_ to dance?"

Drellmar hesitated.

Ashildr squeezed her hand. "Because I would like to dance with _you._ If you wish."

"Yes," Drellmar said. "I believe I _would_ like to dance."

Ashildr picked up her long, black skirts with one hand, and led Drellmar onto the dance floor with the other.

Ashildr turned abruptly as Drellmar gasped.

A shape formed from blackness coalesced on the dance floor, moving carelessly among the elegant dresses and ornate masks. It wore a long feathered cloak, but its mask was burnished gold, a giant black bird with a hooked beak. The eye empty sockets were completely black.

Ashildr felt Drellmar's hand trembling in her own.

"Who is that?" Ashildr asked.

"Trouble," Drellmar said, "Of a very dark kind."

The shape disappeared through the door that the Doctor and Clara had gone through a few minutes before.

#

Clara threw the cane on the floor by the Regent, and then straightened up. As she did, a blast of dark air surrounded her, pressing against her throat and blocking her vision. It was in front of her eyes, in her ears, inside her chest. Fear coursed through her. She tried to scream for the Doctor, but the only noise she could make was a strangled croak.

The Doctor stood in front of her, grasping her shoulders. "What is it?"

"Blackness. Everywhere," she gasped. She couldn't explain. Can you _feel_ darkness? Her throat clenched. She couldn't swallow or move her feet. Panic gripped her chest. She was barely aware of the Regent and his man hurrying away.

The Doctor was looking around, frantically. "Where is it? Show me!" he said.

But Clara couldn't, because it was everywhere. Inside her, around her. Her knees were so weak, she was close to stumbling. "I can't," she whispered. She swayed, scrabbling for a grip on the Doctor's shirt to steady herself.

The Doctor scooped her into his arms before she fell. He strode towards the TARDIS.

Clara's head pounded, her body filled with a rush of sensations, tingling all over, a bursting in her chest. She sucked in a ragged breath of air. "What's happening?"

The Doctor's eyes were wild. She looked up at him, remembering that moment on the Trap Street when they said goodbye. All she could think of was that she couldn't do this to him again.

He'd jerked to a halt. "No," he said, with a chilling finality. "You can't have her."

Clara forced her head up to see who he was talking to. A vision of darkness in a black feathered cape, face and head covered by a golden mask with a long, hooked beak, stood between them and the TARDIS.

"What is it?" Clara whispered.

"The Quantum Shade," the Doctor whispered. Then he said firmly, "I won't let you take her."

The Shade moved closer. "You can not stop me, Time Lord."

A smooth voice came from behind. "But I can."

The Doctor spun them both around.

The Portant of Drellmar stepped between the Quantum Shade and the Doctor and Clara. "You operate outside your contract, Shade."

"Barely. The chrono-lock is failing," the Shade sneered. "Why do you care, Portant? Your kind rarely condescend to move among men. Scurry back to your temple."

The Portant raised her arm. "I will not walk away. Not from this."

A dizzying kaleidescope of colours whirled around Clara and the Doctor. Then the colours formed a bridge between them and the Portant's outstretched hand. Drellmar trembled as energy poured into her, the lights covering her arm with an iridescent glow.

She seemed so small, a slender figure against the bulk of the Quantum Shade, but her eyes flashed from solid misty teal to a powerful, electric blue.

Drellmar thrust her hand forward. A stream of crackling light blasted the Shade. The Shade screamed a furious caw that rumbled deep in Clara's bones, and then it vanished in a blinding flash of light. At the edge of Clara's fading vision Ashildr rushed to the Portant's side, holding her up as the pale woman staggered. Then Clara's world became a haze.

She was in the TARDIS, his TARDIS. Blue and silver.

"That energy surge fried your temporal inductors. You better check … engine room …" That was Ashildr's voice.

Then she was being carried. The world was too bright. Her head pounded.

Someone placed on her own bed in the Diner. The Doctor's voice, smooth like a song, comforting. She felt herself rocked onto her side, her hair shifted. His voice. _Tattoo. It's stable. Rest now._ A soft kiss on her forehead. Then darkness.

I do hope you guys are enjoying this story? Leave me a quick review if you are!

I am flying off to Europe for my hols, so no update next week. Chapter 11 will be ready in 2 weeks. Regress XxX


	11. Chapter 11: Dragon's Den

"Doctor?" Clara mumbled his name, her throat tight and raw. She squinted against the brightness.

"It's all right." This was Ashildr's voice now. "The Shade's gone."

Clara struggled to sit up. She was in her own bedroom in the Diner. Ashildr was perching on the side of her bed, and Drellmar resting on a chair in the corner.

Clara shook her head to clear it. She remembered a dark feathered figure. A blast of light. "What happened?"

"The Shade almost took you."

"How?" Clara croaked.

"Something's weakening the chrono-lock. The Doctor thought it might be a glitch in the temporal looping system in the extraction chamber."

"Where is he?"

"When Drellmar saved your life from the Shade," Ashildr said pointedly, "the energy surge overloaded the TARDIS' temporal inductors. He had to go to get that sorted out."

"You sent him away." The guilty look Ashildr shot at Drellmar told Clara all she needed to know. She groaned and let her head fall back to the pillow. Every muscle in her body ached, but not as fiercely as her heart. She'd throttle Ashildr, if she had the energy. Instead, she looked at Drellmar.

"The colours. Shooting from your arm like that to send the Shade away. How did you do that?"

"I magnified chromatic energy around you, and used it to push the Shade back into the In-Between." Drellmar's voice was weak and slow, as if defeating the Shade had drained her. "It only worked because the Shade was weak. If the chrono-lock breaks down completely, I won't be able to hold it back."

"Then we need to get the last fragment of Dark Star—"

"No we _don't_. We need to stop this, now," Ashildr snapped.

Clara sat up and twisted herself around until her feet were on the floor. "You've no right to tell me what I can or can't do. I'm a grown woman. I make my own choices."

"You're making bad ones! The Shade almost took you." Ashildr stood up, punctuating her words with a trembling finger. "The hybrid could still happen."

"Look, I'm going to get that last fragment, whether you help me or not!" Ire balled like a fist in Clara's chest. She lowered her voice. "I love him, Ashildr. I can't be without him anymore. I just can't."

Ashildr shook her head, her eyes reddening. She sat down again by Clara's side, her voice softening a little. "How do you know it isn't the Dark Star fragments making the chrono-lock fail? You've got those things around your neck, you can't take them off." She glanced at the ceiling for a moment, then shook her head. "Every time _he's_ around things go bad."

"Ashildr, I don't think the Doctor caused this," Drellmar interjected.

The Portant's misty eyes met Ashildr's, and her words seemed to calm her. "You think we should help?" Ashildr asked, more softly now.

Drellmar nodded. "I think she will be safer with our help. I'm willing to try."

Ashildr sighed. "Alright. But for the record, I think this is a terrible idea."

#

The Doctor hovered outside the vault, running his fingers over the dials and buttons. This was probably a terrible idea. When the Portant's surge dealt with the Quantum Shade, it resonated through the TARDIS shields and overloaded the temporal inductors. He needed someone to look at those engines, but he didn't want to spend time doing it himself. He wanted to get back to Clara. She needed him, whether Ashildr approved or not. Besides, this would be a good test for Missy. He'd have to start trusting her at some point. He _wanted_ to trust her, he really did. He wanted to believe, so badly, that she wasn't shedding crocodile tears, and they could be friends again. Perhaps they would see the stars after all.

He took a deep breath, and opened the vault.

"I got a proposition for you," he said. "I need time to do something important."

"I'm listening," Missy said, without a trace of sarcasm, no duplicity he could detect. How long that would last once she was outside the vault, he could only guess. Perhaps, against astronomical odds, this would all work out. Maybe he could be with the woman he loved and have his friend back too. He had to try.

#

"So, where is this fragment, then?" Ashildr asked.

Clara spread an ancient map out over a boulder and held it down against the wind. The sparse landscape was scattered with lone boulders and an occasional tree. "This planet is called Fyrian. According to legends, the Dark Star fragment contained the secret of eternal youth so it was hidden away inside a carved dragon's egg. Anyway, a young man called Egret the Vain, stole it. As a punishment he was transformed and doomed to protect the egg forever."

"Transformed into what?"

They all turned sharply at the Doctor's voice.

"Doctor!" Clara breathed, stepping towards him, but hesitating to embrace him. He hesitated too.

"You," Ashildr grumbled. "What are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too," he shot back at Ashildr. He turned to Drellmar and smiled. "It _is_ nice to see _you_." He picked up the edge of the faded, crinkled map. "So, go on. What's guarding the Dark Star?"

"Well, here's the thing," Clara said, shooting a doubtful glance at the Doctor. "It's supposedly a dragon. Called Egret. Well, he was a boy called Egret. Now he's a dragon."

The Doctor scoffed. "Dragons are not real."

The women all stared at him.

"Look, I've been around this universe a few times," he said. "Seen lots of things. Never once met a dragon."

"You don't know everything, Doctor," Ashildr said, folding her arms. She turned to Clara. "I don't think he should come."

Clara shook her head. "He's coming," she said, her tone brokering no argument. "Now, we have to get into the caves. It's a decent walk, and we can't get the Diner any closer because of the sub-phasic disturbance from thermite processing all over this area.

"Right. We better get started then." Ashildr swung her backpack over her shoulders, and with a scowl at the Doctor, started off down the track. Drellmar smiled apologetically at them both, and then followed Ashildr.

Clara packed the map away in her rucksack. Then, after a glance in Ashildr's direction, she pulled the Doctor into an embrace and kissed him. "How did you find us?"

"I'll always find you, Clara. I made you a promise." The kiss lingered, and then turned into another.

Clara broke it in the end. She tugged the Doctor's hand. "Come on. We better not annoy Ashildr any more."

They walked together along the track, following the route Ashildr and Drellmar had taken. "How do you think a boy could get turned into a dragon—"

"—it's not a dragon."

"—Well, whatever it is, how would the Dark Star even do that?" Clara asked, as they walked hand in hand through the scrubby landscape. The landscape may have once been an arable area, but now fields were overgrown and the barbed wire fences broken down in places.

"I don't know. But remember what happened with Amit and Aramantha? The Dark Stars must have trans-mutative powers as well as the ability to open this dimensional tear."

"So it _could_ create a dragon, then?"

"No, no, Definitely not. They're only in stories."

"Hmmmm," Clara said, giving him a playful nudge. "I'm just going to whisper _Robin Hood."_

#

As they walked on, billowing clouds began to fill the blue sky. The landscape around them was bare at best, and at worst, distinctly _scorched_. In the distance were burned-out buildings, the skeleton of an old barn and a roofless cottage.

Ashildr stopped and pointed at a blackened tree, it's trunk split down the middle.

"Lightning," the Doctor proclaimed.

Ashildr rolled her eyes, scoffed, and marched onwards.

Drellmar raised an eyebrow at Clara. "They really don't like each other, do they?"

"It goes back a long way," Clara said. "Look, I haven't thanked you properly for what you did at the Stangers Ball. You saved my life."

"I wish I could do more," Drellmar said, her long white cloak billowing in the breeze. "That necklace. May I see it?"

Clara untucked it from beneath her shirt. "It's a bit volatile. I have to keep it dark and close to me, but not touching my skin. If I take it off, it starts to frazzle and pop like crazy. I wish I'd never put it on now. I'm stuck with it."

Drellmar touched the gem, and then pulled her hand back abruptly.

"I'm sorry. Did it hurt you?" Clara said.

Drellmar shook her fingers. "It's alright."

Clara tucked the necklace away. She deliberately matched Drellmar's pace, although there was a part of her that didn't want to talk to this strange woman at all. "Don't take this the wrong way," she said, forcing herself to make conversation, "but why are you helping us?"

Drellmar pursed her lips and turned her pale eyes to Clara. "Many reasons. But you and the Doctor belong together. I can see it."

"You've only just met us," Clara said, unease flipping her stomach. There was no reason at all for her to react like this. Ashildr liked Drellmar, and for all Ashildr's gargantuan blind spot when it came to the Doctor, she was usually a fairly good judge of character.

"A Portant sees things," Drellmar went on. "Your timelines are like nothing I've ever seen before. It is as if you have lived many lives. I can't explain it." Drellmar smiled gently. "And Time Lord timelines, well my people have drawings of those." She raised a delicate finger towards the Doctor. "His are complex, but in keeping with what one would expect. Yet when you come together, something new is created."

Clara laughed, a little uncomfortably. "What do you mean?"

"Your auras merge and become extraordinarily powerful. My people call it _Saw-el-Ma._ Destined to be joined. I tapped into that power to rebuff the Shade."

"I don't understand how you did it, but I'm grateful."

"I will protect you, if I can. But if the chrono-lock fails, nothing will stop the Shade from completing its contract."

Clara rubbed her neck with her palm, and then pressed her fingers into her carotid artery, as she had so many times over the years. No pulse. So the chrono-lock was still holding. She was safe for now.

The Doctor had strode ahead, his long paces crossing the landscape in looping strides, his restless energy showing no signs of abating. Clara had so many things she wanted to tell him, share with him, show him. So many things they could have said and done when they traveled together, so many chances missed. She longed for time alone with him. But with Ashildr watching them like some kind of self-appointed guard dog, it didn't look like that was going to happen.

Ahead, Ashildr had stopped. The Doctor was running his hand over the surface of a sheer wall of rock.

"What is it?" Clara asked, glad to be back with Ashildr and the Doctor. A stab of guilt for feeling that way about Drellmar ran through her.

"A way in, I think," Ashildr said. "What does the map say?"

Clara dug the map from her backpack. "The caverns start right here. There should be an entrance …"

"Aha," Ashildr said, shining a torch through a crack between two large boulders. She gave the stone a tentative shove with her shoulder. "I think we need to …" The stone didn't budge. Drellmar moved to Ashildr's side and put her hand on the rock face. Clara watched them both, examining the rock together, talking like old friends. Whatever vibes Drellmar gave off, Ashildr didn't seem affected in the least.

A few feet to the left, Clara spotted a series of paintings on the rocks. The paint was worn and faded now, and the pictures themselves crude. She followed them along the rock face. "Look, Doctor," she pointed at a scene of a village. A huge dragon swooped over the fields, breathing flames while match stick people ran in terror. Another scene depicted a knight dressed in full armor, sword aloft, shield raised against the dragon's terrible breath.

"No dragon, eh?" she said, poking him playfully.

He glanced at Ashildr and Drellmar, who were still talking, heads close together. He slipped his hands to her waist. "I'd fight a dragon for you," he said, drawing her into a kiss.

"Would you?" she whispered. She reached up and, and after a quick glance at Ashildr, she kissed him again. "Are we ever going to get any time alone together?"

"Soon, I hope. If this Dark Star next creates a stable bridge, we could have all the time in the world."

Clara hardly dared hope it was true, but she could hardly think of anything else. "This _has_ to work," she whispered.

As he pressed his lips to hers again, his kiss was like a flame coursing through her, heating up her soul.

The Doctor glanced across to Ashildr. "Uh oh. We've been rumbled. We better see what she wants."

They wound their way back to Ashildr and Drellmar.

"So sorry to interrupt," Ashildr said acidly.

The Doctor had his sonic screwdriver in his hand now. "Um, if I set up a complex repeating resonance pattern at just the right frequency, then perhaps we can destabilise the molecules in the rock—"

"Yes, yes, all very sciency and impressive. But Drellmar thinks she can get us in."

"What, she's going to open the magical door to the dragon's lair with—"

Drellmar's eyes were closed, her white face serene. She lifted a hand. Slowly, very slowly, with a creaking groan, the rock moved aside.

"Woah," Clara exclaimed. Even the Doctor looked impressed.

Ashildr shot an imperious look in the Doctor's direction. "More things than you know," she mouthed.

"Alright," he conceded. "But I'm telling you, there'll be no dragon down there sleeping on a pile of gold."

#

Twenty minutes later, the Doctor skidded to a halt in the darkness in front of Clara. "Okay. So there's a huge dragon," he said, his voice filled with unashamed excitement. He'd nipped ahead while they consulted the map. Now, he stood in front of Clara, Ashildr, and Drellmar in the dark, moving from foot to foot, waving his hands. "It's fast asleep, snoring on an enormous pile of gold."

"No such thing as dragons?" Ashildr said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

"Who cares about being wrong when you find something as fabulous as this?" he said. He grabbed Clara's hand. "Come and see." This was what she loved about being with the Doctor. He really was the biggest five year old in the universe, full of awe and excitement, always curious. It was infectious.

In the chamber, a dragon lay curled in its nest, sleeping on a mound of gold plates, ornate cups, candlesticks, crowns, and thick, regal chains. The dragon itself was covered in bronze-green scales, its underbelly pale, and its wings tucked neatly into its sides. It looked almost peaceful, with its eyes closed, and its nostrils flaring gently as it breathed in and out. Dotted around the cavern were jewel-encrusted swords, several shields emblazoned with the motifs of great Fyrian houses, and a silver mirror with a gilded frame.

"Meet Egret, the not-dragon," the Doctor said softly.

Clara couldn't help but be swept up in his enthusiasm. The beast _was_ magnificent. There was a round hole in the cavern ceiling, and the dragon's scales glimmered in the low evening sun.

"Where's the Dark Star?" Clara whispered.

"Could be anywhere," the Doctor said.

Clara took a step forwards. The picture of the Dark Star had shown a smooth, shining oval shape, as dark as night and about the size of an ostrich egg. Clara grabbed a fistful of the Doctor's jacket and pointed to the dragon's head. The Dark Star was tucked under Egret's chin. Of course it was. Where else would it be?

The Doctor grinned, as if he was tickled by the whole turn of events. He really didn't seem to mind being wrong.

Ashildr and Drellmar padded into the cavern behind them. Ashildr let out a long breath.

"Will your mind trick thing work on a dragon?" Clara asked, remembering how Drellmar had turned the guards when they first met.

"Unlikely. Not much to work with in a beast's mind."

Clara turned to the Doctor. "Do you speak dragon?"

"Let's find out." Before Clara could stop him, he approached the sleeping dragon. "Just wondering, if it's not too much trouble, could we borrow that egg?"

Clara groaned. This was reckless, even for him. She grabbed a shield that was propped against the wall and passed it to Ashildr, before taking another herself and creeping after the Doctor.

The dragon lifted its head, slowly. Its eyes flicked open. They were crimson.

"Doctor—" Clara hissed.

"Well look at you beauty!" the Doctor took another step towards the beast.

Egret's nostrils flared.

"Tell me, have you always been a dragon?" the Doctor called up, inching closer to Egret's head.

Clara smelled sulfur. A trickle of grey smoke rose in a thin line from Egret's nostril, curling towards the ceiling.

Ashildr shuffled to the other side of the cavern. Egret's head swung towards her, his eyes as red as a scarlet sunset.

Clara reached the Doctor's side, holding the shield in front of her. "I hope you have a plan!"

He grinned. "His chin isn't on the egg anymore. That's a step in the right direction." He scooped up a long spear with a golden tip and shoved it at the egg. It started to roll down the mound of gold objects, sending trinkets clattering in its wake.

Egret's head swung back. His red eyes settled on the Doctor.

The dragon's mouth opened in a terrible roar. Flames blasted at them.

Clara raised the shield and yanked the Doctor down, a moment too late. His hair was singed on one side, the air thick with the smell of burning.

"Are you alright?" Clara yelled, as fire surged over and around the gold shield.

He nodded and patted at his hair, his face falling into a frown. "That was _rude_."

Clara peeked over the edge of the shield. Ashildr had a sword in her hand now, too, her face fierce. She never really forgot how to be a Viking.

The egg had stopped rolling when it got wedged between a plate and a large golden crown halfway down the gold mountain.

Atop the pile of gold, Egret snorted, and stretched his wings, eyes settling on the egg.

A deep rumbling filled the cavern, and then flames roared from his mouth.

Clara heard Ashildr coughing in the thick smoke that filled the air.

The Doctor weighed the gold-tipped spear in his hands.

"Hmm," he said.

"What are you going to do?" Clara whispered, still clutching the shield in front of them both.

The egg rolled a little further. Egret flapped his wings, leaped down the mountain of gold and grabbed for the egg with razor-sharp talons.

"This!" The Doctor lunged at the egg with the spear. Egret whipped his long, barbed tail. The Doctor ducked, but not quite fast enough. The blow sent him spinning towards the cavern wall.

"Doctor!" Clara yelled.

Clara grabbed a sword. She raised her shield, and then slashed at Egret's front leg. The dragon roared in agony, blasting more fire across the cave. The egg rolled from his claws. Clara stumbled towards the Doctor, through choking clouds of smoke. They both crouched low against the cavern wall. The Doctor grabbed another shield, and held it up above their heads. His face was smeared with blood now, where the dragon's tail had caught his cheek.

They huddled close, shoulder to shoulder behind the shields. She wiped the blood from his face with her thumb. He didn't flinch, he just looked at her in the eyes, his mouth crinkled into a half grin. He was exhilarated, she could see it. She could _feel_ his excitement, and it rushed through her too. Despite it all, there was nowhere she'd rather be.

She leaned over and kissed him. "Is this what it will be like when we're together?"

"We'll fight dragons all day and make love all night. How does that sound?" he said, his eyes sparking. Before she could even answer he peeked around the shield for a moment, and then snatched his head back. "Get ready to run."

Through the grey-blue smoke filling the chamber, Clara saw Egret scratching frantically on the gold, as if searching for his egg.

Clara choked. She snatched a breath and smoke filled her lungs. "Doctor," she croaked, clutching her throat. "Something's wrong."

The Dark Star necklace hummed and juddered around her neck. With shaking fingers, she pulled the chain out from under her jumper. The gem vibrated angrily in her hands.

Clara was hot, hotter than she ever been before, sweat beading on her forehead. Her head throbbed. A trickle of something ran from her nose. As she dragged her trembling hand over her top lip, a smear of blood trailed across her finger. She tried to focus on the Doctor. He was saying something, very important, she was sure. If he would just stop blurring and shimmering.

Ashildr emerged from the smoke at the other side of the cavern. She clashed her sword against her shield. "Hey, leave them alone!" she yelled at the Dragon.

The dragon bellowed his fury and whipped around toward Ashildr, his tail smashing into the wall over Clara's head. Splinters of stone clattered onto the shield. Clara let the gem drop and covered her ears. Everything was too loud. Nausea fluttered in her stomach.

A swirling silver vortex began to form in the air to the left. Clara gasped. She tried to shout. No words came.

She stared in horror as a dark shape appeared in the shimmering tear.

A black mass became a feathered cloak. A gold mask.

Clara clutched her chest, pain and fear rippling through her body.

The Quantum Shade had come for her.

#

"Clara," the Doctor said, his fingers shaking as he gripped the gem around her neck that was vibrating so angrily. What was it doing? He peeked out past the shield again. Ashildr was still trying to distract the dragon, shouting and then dodging behind a stack of gold. Egret bellowed and turned in the chamber.

Inside the quantum tear, a black figure grew larger every second.

Pale as death, Clara trembled beside him.

"Listen," he said urgently, "we are going to run that way. Do you hear me, Clara?"

Her chest was stuttering now. Her eyes were glazed. Blood dripped from her nose.

"Clara, can you hear me? We need to run." Desperation curled around his throat. He couldn't lose her now. Not when they had a life together in sight.

Her head bobbed and rolled as she tried to focus on him. "Run. Towards the dragon," she said, blearily.

"Yes. Just trust me. You trust me, don't you?"

Behind them, the Shade was almost fully formed. The only way out of the chamber was still blocked by the roaring dragon with the Dark Star egg in its claws. If Clara had ever trusted him, she needed to trust him now.

She nodded, mutely, her lips slightly parted, her breath coming in gasps, a trickle of blood on her top lip.

"Right. Now. Run." As he forced her to her feet, the shield she had been holding clattered to the floor. He gripped his own shield with one hand, covering them both, and put his other hand around her back. They ran.

As if in slow motion, the necklace bounced on her chest.

Ahead, barely visible in the dim light, the dragon's bronze claws curled around the Dark Star. Ashildr was beckoning them towards the entrance.

The Doctor pushed forward, the shield sheltering them from another fiery blast. When that was spent, in the few seconds before the dragon could breathe fire again, the Doctor flung his shield away. He gripped the gem on Clara's necklace between his fingers, ignoring the searing cold and the sickening vibration. He pushed the necklace at the shining black egg clenched in the dragon's vicious claws. The gems touched.

The Dark Star in Clara's necklace and the dragon's egg merged in a flash of bright light.

The dragon bellowed.

Clara screamed. Her cry pierced the Doctor's hearts, so like that haunting death-scream on the Trap Street. She was breathing raggedly, erratically. She'd gasp one or two tortured breaths, then stop. He pressed his fingers to her throat. Her pulse flared and faded, flared and faded. Her legs buckled. He scooped her into his arms. The Doctor's hearts thundered, pounding his chest, thumping through his head. He wouldn't let her go, not again. He couldn't lose her now.

The Doctor searched blindly as the smoke cleared. Reflected by the mirror against the wall, he glimpsed a naked, shivering, young man with dark brown skin, clutching his arm, blood seeping through his fingers. From the slash of Clara's blade. Egret.

The Shade stepped out of the tear and into the dark cavern, black feathered cloak rippling in the darkness, the gold of its mask glinting against the gold all around. It stopped before the Doctor, with its head tilted to one side, as if it were waiting.

"You're interfering with the chrono-lock," the Doctor spat.

"It is not my doing. You create your own fate." The Shade's tone was light, as if it didn't care one way or another for the fate of mortals or immortals.

"How?" the Doctor demanded. "With the Dark Stars?"

The Shade laughed, a dry, rattling laugh. "They create a bridge between your worlds. Yet they also weaken the chrono-lock. Elegant, isn't it?"

The Doctor saw Drellmar from the corner of his eye, swirling her white cloak around Egret's shoulders.

Then she turned to the Shade. "You are powerful within the terms of your contract, but you didn't do this on your own."

The Shade shrugged. "I am a Shade. I take many forms,and work for more than one master." The Shade turned to Ashildr, and made a low, mocking bow.

Ashildr shook her head, wiping her eyes, as the smoke cleared. "I would break that contract, if I could. The Time Lords left me with little choice."

The Shade said nothing.

"But who is doing this, now?" the Doctor pressed. "Who cares enough?" He had to know. If he understood who, then maybe he'd have a chance. Clara lay still in his arms now, deathly pale, her chest no longer rising or falling. The Dark Star on her necklace had changed, too. It had become a swirling galaxy of silver specks trapped inside a glittering black gem. It lay quite still on her chest. The Doctor gently put Clara down, propping her up against the cavern wall. Blood had pooled on her lip and dripped onto her jumper, but it was no longer running from her nose. So whatever had made her breathe again, her heart pump blood again, had now stopped.

A prickle of hope tingled in the Doctor's hearts. "You might as well tell me who's behind this," he said lightly. "Who keeps sending you on missions you can't complete?" He straightened, and then picked up a plate from the heap of gold. He sniffed it and then tossed it back on the pile.

"I will not speak the name," the Shade said, pacing up and down the cavern. Gold cups clattered to the floor by the Shade's feet where the Doctor had carelessly dislodged the pile.

"Oh, quite right. I'd flap off back to your master now and start apologising. After all, these quantum bridges you've created are a double clawed trap. So, for example," he said, glancing at Drellmar, "the exchange force of the electron-positron annihilation sequence would reflect quite badly on you." The Doctor picked up a thick gold necklace. "Here, why don't you take a trinket?" The Doctor turned to Egret, who was shivering by the pile of gold. "You don't mind, do you, Egret?"

The boy shook his head, miserably.

"See? There's plenty of stuff laying around. It might improve your master's temper." The Doctor dangled the chain in front of the Shade.

The Shade ignored the Doctor's offer. "I fear nothing," it sneered, balling its claw-like hands into a fist. Then it stopped pacing. "How many seconds are in eternity, Doctor?"

"What?" The Doctor looked up from fiddling with an ornate gilded mirror.

"And what came before?" the Shade asked.

"Before eternity?" The Doctor chewed his lip, resting the mirror against the wall. "Well, you've got me there."

The Shade scoffed, swishing his cloak. "It's a matter of _time_."

"It always is," the Doctor said softly, coming to a halt between Clara and the Shade. Drellmar ducked behind him and pressed her fingers to Clara's neck. Then she nodded at the Doctor.

"You've overplayed your hand," the Doctor said to the Shade. "Clara's not out of the chrono-lock yet. If this Dark Star opened that portal, then it can close it again." He nodded to Drellmar.

Drellmar lifted Clara's necklace between her fingers. It sizzled in the air, crackling around her hand, singing her skin, but she didn't let go. Drellmar directed the bright light shooting from the necklace towards the mirror the Doctor had just placed against the wall.

Too late, the Shade realised what was happening. The light, in streams of many colours, bounced off the mirror and towards the shimmering tear in reality.

The Shade screeched, and then twisted on the spot, spinning faster and faster becoming a black blur. Then its feathered cloak folded in on itself with a sharp crack.

In its place was a raven.

The raven cawed once, and then flapped towards the quantum tear. It vanished in a flash of silver light. The tear popped closed.

Drellmar slumped to the floor next to Clara, clutching her burned hand. Ashildr rushed to her side. Egret stood watching, shaking, next to his pile of gold, huddling Drellmar's white cloak around him.

The Doctor crouched between them Clara and Drellmar, looking from one to the other, catching his breath.

Clara's eyelids flickered. "Doctor," she whispered, her voice little more than a soft croak. The necklace lay on her chest, glowing shades of green, morphing to blue, and then silver. He took it in his fingers to tuck it away under her shirt. As he did, it flared iridescent blue.

The Doctor felt the weight of ages on his shoulders. This had been too close. _Too damn close_. The necklace had changed, it seemed more reactive than ever, its pattern of silver stars tumbling endlessly and flaring at his touch. He rubbed his forehead, his singed hair was short and wiry now on one side, and the dragon's tail had left a raw welt on his cheek. He needed time. Time to work out what the Shade meant with his riddle about what came before eternity. What could come before time?

He'd need to fix the chrono-lock to stabilise Clara. Something had to be tampering with the extraction chamber. The only way to know for sure would be to go back. Back to the last place in the universe he wanted to go. Back to Gallifrey. But right now, he needed to get Clara and Drellmar somewhere safe. And he couldn't leave Egret wandering half-naked around a dragon's lair under a mountain.

The Doctor closed his eyes for a second, marshaling his thoughts, summoning his reserve.

"Doctor? We should go." Ashildr said, putting a hand on his arm. Her tone wasn't rough or harsh, and she was right.

The Doctor nodded and looked up at Ashildr. "Let's get the hell out of here."


	12. Chapter 12: The Doctor Falls

**The Doctor Falls, Part One.**

Clara stumbled out of the cave with the Doctor, Ashildr, Drellmar, and Egret, her head ringing, the metallic tang of blood lingering in her mouth long after her nose had stopped bleeding. She daren't touch the Doctor, not even to hold his hand, in case the Shade appeared again.

Drellmar and Ashildr spoke in low voices to Egret, but she couldn't focus enough to understand what they said.

As they walked back through the moonlit landscape Clara's head began to clear, and in place of the dizzying confusion, a rumble of anger built in her chest.

"So what is this necklace doing, exactly?" she asked the Doctor, as they entered the Diner.

"It's punching through the fabric of space time to create a bridge between us. Effectively drawing us together. At the same time, it's sending a signal interfering with the chrono-lock. That's what allowed the Quantum Shade through."

"An elegant trap," Ashildr chipped in.

"Elegant? It's foul!" Scowling, Clara threw herself into one of the red leather seats. The nosebleed, the Shade, not to mention the fight with the dragon, had left her irritable and exhausted. She didn't know what to think about it all.

"But where does the energy comes from," the Doctor said, rubbing his neck. He'd walked through to the console room at the back of the Diner and flicked the doors closed just before Ashildr could do it. The dragon's breath had singed his hair on the left side of his head, leaving him looking oddly lopsided. There was a raw welt on the side of his cheek where Egret's tail had struck him.

"I think I know where the energy is coming from," Drellmar said. "I saw you two dancing together at the Strangers Ball. When you touch, your temporal auras merge and become … something else, something new."

"And the Dark Stars in the necklace amplify that energy?" the Doctor said, as if unravelling a particularly fascinating puzzle, rather than talking about the mess their lives had become. "That's clever."

"Wait," Clara snapped. "What do you mean the auras merge? Become what?" She leapt to her feet and stomped across the Diner. She turned on the Doctor as he emerged from the white glare of the console room. "It's the bloody hybrid, isn't it?"

"Clara, calm down," he said, reaching out to her, and then holding back.

"Don't tell me to calm down! After all this time, that damn prophecy again! We're together but we can't touch each other because if we do the Shade will take me? This has to be some sort of bad joke."

"Um. I'm sorry. What's going on?" This was Egret, who stood, bewildered, by the Diner's counter watching the adults argue around him. "If that necklace is so bad, why don't you just take it off?"

"What, like you stopped resting your head on the egg, dragon boy?" Clara snapped. "I can't take it off, because if I do, it causes a big rip in the fabric of space!"

Egret shrank away. Ashildr put her arm around his shoulders. "Ignore her. She gets snappy when she's frustrated." Ashildr shot Clara a stern glare, before turning back to the boy. "You must be exhausted. How about I find you a room? We'll talk after everyone has gotten some rest."

Egret nodded uncertainly. "Uh. Okay." He glanced at the Doctor. "I'm sorry about your hair. And your face. Sir."

The Doctor absently touched the welt on his check. "It's already forgotten," he said, his voice softened with kindness.

As Ashildr led Egret further into the Diner, she leaned close to the Doctor. "You know what this all means, don't you?" she said, tapping his chest and then glancing at Clara. "It means _hands off._ "

"You have got to be kidding me," Clara muttered, glaring at Ashildr's back as she left. She raised her finger toward the Doctor. "We need to talk." She stalked out of the Diner, through the console room, and towards her bedroom, with the Doctor trailing behind her.

#

The Doctor paused for a moment outside the door Clara had just gone through, presumably her bedroom. This was going to be a difficult conversation. Clara looked just about ready to throttle someone back there.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the bedroom.

Now they were alone Clara's frustration spilled over. "The smug cow. I'm going to kill her."

"I don't think it's Ashildr you're angry with," the Doctor said, in the most soothing voice he could muster. But it didn't calm Clara at all.

"This is ridiculous. I can't believe we're finally here, together, and we can't touch one another!" She scowled, her face full of defiance. "As a matter of fact, I _don't_ believe it."

Clara stepped forward abruptly. She kissed him, pushing him back against the door, pressing her body to his. There was something urgent and raw in the way she kissed him.

"Clara," he groaned her name, barely able to think straight with her body trembling against him like this. "Clara, the necklace …"

"I don't care," she said, tugging at his shirt. "I want you. I need you. Don't you feel the same?"

"I do, of course I do," he said, his resolution fading. The heat between their bodies rose to an intolerable throbbing. She smelled of desire, of need. He wanted her. So very much. And she _wanted_ him. After all this time, finally, she was in his arms.

His fingers found the top button of her shirt. He undid one, then another, exposing the bare skin of her neck and the black lace of the top of her bra.

His eyes fell to the necklace, vibrating in time with his thundering hearts. It started to glow, and a trickle of silver light began swirling in the air between them.

Clara looked down at the necklace, her eyes wide. "No! Get it off me!"

But he knew it was impossible. Even now it pulsed and throbbed, feeding off their combined auras, sending its deadly message to the Extraction Chamber, drilling into the fabric of space time to open another crack and let the Shade through.

They had to stop.

He did her buttons up and stepped away. "We can't. It's not safe. It's like Drellmar said. Our time auras are linked, to each other, and now to the Dark Stars. We're activating it. We have to stop." He watched the swirling lights around the necklace disperse, confirming Drellmar's theory that it was contact between them that set it off.

Clara let out an exasperated growl. "How can you be so calm about this? Don't you _want_ me? Don't you want us—"

"Clara, believe me, I do. But that's not the _only_ reason I want you. If I could never touch you again, I'd still want to be with you. Don't you feel the same way?"

Clara let out a choked sob. "Of course I do! It's just. I'm sorry. Oh, God, it's so frustrating. Like a curse or something. Whoever's doing this, I hate them." She started to pace around the room.

He held his hands out in front of him, trying to calm Clara without touching her. "I know. I know. But we can fight it. We go back to the extraction chamber find what's tampering with the chrono-lock."

"Back to Gallifrey?" she said, halting just in front of him. "Last thing I remember they made you President and then you ran away."

"Perhaps I'm done with running. Perhaps it's time to draw another line in the sand."

"All right." Clara's eyes narrowed, shifting somehow from anger to determination. "Gallifrey. I don't think we should let some dusty prophecy control our lives. So what if 'something powerful is created?' Why does it automatically have to be bad? Maybe _we_ use this power how _we_ want to." Clara seemed more focused now, as if she had something new to unravel.

He smiled at her then, her warm eyes doing to him what they always did. Giving him hope, making him believe anything was possible. His instinct was to lean forwards and kiss her, but he held back. She must have felt it too, her lips were slightly parted, her eyes pressed closed for an instant. Then she composed herself. "Okay," she said. "If we're going to Gallifrey, you need to look the part."

He narrowed his eyes. "What have you got in mind?"

#

A little later, Doctor sat on a chair in the middle of Clara's room, with a towel around his shoulders and a scowl on his face. "Are you finished?"

Clara had moved around him, clipping his hair, brushing the burned silver curls from his shoulders with a light touch and a self-satisfied smile.

She lowered the clippers and admired her handiwork. "Not bad," she said. "But I'll miss the floof." Singed silver-grey curls lay of the floor all around.

"So will I," he said, running his hands through the short-cropped top. He rubbed the side of his hair and frowned at the short prickles he found there.

Clara shrugged. "It was singed back quite far in places. I had to—"

"Get me a mirror?" he said, eying the devilish look on her face with concern.

She passed him a mirror. She'd shaved the sides short. But she'd also cut intricate Gallifreyan symbols into the sides of his hair.

He smiled as he recognised the symbols. "You know what that translates to?"

"Uh hm," she said softly. "My heart in your hands. If we can't touch one another, I don't want you forgetting."

"Clara, as if I would. As if I _could_ —"

She backed towards the door. "Hang on, I've got something else for you."

She returned a few minutes later with an armored chest plate. It was deep red, the colour of the High Council Guard on Gallifrey.

The Doctor eyed the chest plate. It was battle armor of a rare kind, made of super-lightweight metal alloy.

"Where did you get that?"

"From the wardrobe room. A hundred years, and I still don't think I've seen everything in there."

"I thought these were destroyed in the Time War." He stroked the chest plate with some unease. It could take the brunt of Dalek weapons and had several other functions he could hardly remember. The last time he'd worn something like this he'd barely been the Doctor at all.

Suddenly, a piercing scream rang out.

The Doctor flung the chest plate on Clara's bed.

"That's Egret," Clara said.

They hurried to the boy's room. He was out of bed, huddled in the corner, arms wrapped around his legs, his eyes wild and red.

Clara crouched in front of him. "Bad dream?"

He sniffed and nodded.

"I'm not surprised," The Doctor said. "You spent years with your head resting on a Dark Star, punctuated with occasional village burning and maiden-eating. You're bound to have a few bad dreams about that." The Doctor looked at Egret in slight alarm, realising he probably wasn't helping with that last point. Now would probably be the right time for a note card. "I'm sure you didn't actually eat any maidens. Did you?"

Egret's eyes brimmed with tears. "I was a _dragon."_

"It's alright," Clara said, putting an arm around Egret's shoulder and glaring at the Doctor, "Dragons being dragons, I'm sure you couldn't help it. We don't blame you for anything that happened. Really we don't."

"What you know about the Dark Star that trapped you?" the Doctor asked, glad to change the subject.

Egret shrugged. "The egg? I know it's powerful. Whenever I was outside the cave, I longed to be back. I don't remember much else."

"Egret, you spent years with that Dark Star," The Doctor crouched down beside the shivering boy. "You know _something_ about it."

"I don't," Egret said, miserably.

Ashildr and Drellmar, both in their nightclothes, came into the room. "What's wrong?"

"Bad dream," Clara explained.

Clara led Egret to the bed, and the boy perched unhappily on the side, staring at the adults around him.

"Well, now is as good a time as any," the Doctor said. They were all awake now, so he might as well ask. "How did it all start?"

Egret sniffed. "I was twelve when it happened. I watched my father waste away from the sickness, just like he'd watched his father before him. Mother said it happens to men in our family. I was afraid. I swore it wouldn't happen to me.

"The tales we grew up with told of magic under the mountain, a dark jewel with the power to grant a dying wish. The night my father died, I took a lock of his hair, and while my mother wept, I took my little sister and had her help me search for Alkil-Shaz, the giver of life, in the caverns under the mountain."

Egret sniffed again before he went on, "We wandered for hours, until we found the chamber where you found me. It was vast, but the moonlight shone through the great eye above and landed on the dark egg. It hummed and sang like nothing I'd ever seen. My sister was afraid and begged me to take her home, but I wouldn't listen."

Egret stared with unseeing eyes at a spot on the wall before he went on quietly, "I have lived the moment a million times, and a million times wished it undone. Pria and I sat with the egg between us in the moonlight. With my dead father's hair clutched my hand, my sister's tears splashing on that dark egg, I made my foolish wish. 'Let me stay ever young.'

The next thing I knew, my sister was screaming. I opened my mouth to speak and saw nothing but flames. She ran. I never saw her again."

Egret's eyes were red, his head hung low.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes, thinking aloud. "So, they tap into something beyond space and time. They can realise your deepest wishes."

"Amit and Aramantha," Clara added. "They wanted to be together, and they got their wish. Only not in the way they hoped. They were locked together, but facing in opposite directions. A bit like us," Clara added the last part under her breath.

The Doctor shot a glance Clara's way, and then turned back to Egret. "How long were you under the mountain?"

"I don't know. Many, many summers. At first, I tried to go home, but the people screamed in terror. I was a beast. And the longer I was a beast, the less of a boy I became." His voice lowered to a dark choke. "I did terrible things. If I could take them back, I would."

"It is a burden to live with the things we've done. But live with them we must." The Doctor put a consoling hand on Egret's shoulder. "You're not a beast any more. It's what you do next that matters."

"But what _can_ I do? Where will I go?"

"We could try to find your family on Fyrian. But first, you could help us. You spent a long time in contact with the Dark Star."

"But I don't remember anything about that. Just a lot of gold and burned villages," Egret said, running his hand over his eyes as if to stop tears threatening to flow.

The Doctor gently tapped Egret's temple. "Ah, but I think the dragon mind is still in there, somewhere. And it knows things."

"I told you, I don't know anything!" Egret said, kicking his feet against the floor.

"Where we're going, there's a way to find out."

"Doctor, what are you planning?" Clara said, her voice laced with suspicion. She took the Doctor to one side, with her schoolteacher face on. "Egret's a child. One who'd spent years burning villages, true, but on the outside he's still a kid."

The Doctor tried a breezy tone, the one he used to make a stupidly dangerous plan sound like a Sunday School trip. "We're going to Gallifrey. We can upload Egret-the-Dragon's consciousness to the Matrix and discover what it knows."

"Okay," Clara said, narrowing her eyes. "But what about Egret-the-Not-Dragon. What will happen to him?"

"Nothing! He'll be fine. I'll get you a identity filter to use when you upload his consciousness to the Matrix. It will separate out the dragon's memories from Egret's.

"Are you sure that will work?"

"Of course. Time Lords use them to treat Post Regeneration Identity Disorder."

"That's a thing?"

"Well, it's rare. But sometimes old personalities don't want to let go. They fight for dominance in the new body. The filter helps separate them, and preserve them in the Matrix."

Ashildr listened with her arms crossed. "We can't just walk into the Capitol."

"We need to choose our moment," he said, already turning his mind to finding the perfect time. He strode from Egret's room and to the console room, where he activated two data screens. He scrolled down sheets of data and viewed images on a flat image scanner, flicking between the two to find the perfect moment. "Here," he said at last, "The Panopticon was full to bursting that day. A bunch of rowdy politicians arguing. Perfect cover for us. The Citadel Guards will have their hands full stopping the Chapterhouses tearing each other limb from limb."

"What's going on?" Clara said, staring at the huge chamber full of scarlet-robed Time Lords.

The Doctor shrugged. "Power struggles. Dull, dull, dull. But we sneak in through the tunnels. You, Drellmar, and Egret interrogate the Matrix, while Ashildr and I go up to the Extraction Chamber and find out what's gone wrong there. Then we meet back in the Cloisters and use a transmat to get out. We'll have to do it together, though. I can set up a high-power incursion beam from the transmat to break through the Citadel's defences and get us out. We'll only get one shot."

Clara was frowning. "Shouldn't I come with you to the Extraction Chamber?"

"No!" he snapped. "No," he said again, more gently this time. "That would be far too dangerous. I don't want you anywhere near that chamber. Please, don't even argue."

He thought for a moment that she was going to argue, but her eyes softened, and she nodded. "Alright."

"Then it's decided. We'll go first thing tomorrow."

#

Later, after he'd examined the images he'd brought up until he was sick of the sight of pompous Time Lords, the Doctor tapped lightly on Clara's bedroom door. This was probably a terrible idea. She was probably asleep. He should sleep too. Only he couldn't. She opened the door within seconds. Not asleep, then.

"I. I wanted to say goodnight. I didn't mean to wake you."

She wore pale silk pajamas, her hair brushed loose around her shoulders. Without a word, she opened the door to invite him in.

"I couldn't sleep. I keep thinking about the Quantum Shade. It's one hell of a trap. My body going in and out of the chrono-lock."

The Doctor swallowed hard. He was trying desperately _not_ to think of her body. He decided he'd better inspect the contents of her dressing table. He turned over a brush, and then picked up a pot of face cream.

Clara was staring at him now. "Why did you come here?" she whispered.

All his fine words earlier about loving her from afar fell away. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her close and spend the whole night loving her in this room.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come. It's not fair on either of us."

"No. It isn't fair. But we're going to deal with it like the grownups we are."

Clara grabbed two pillows from a cupboard, and flung them end on end down the middle of the bed. She lay herself on one side. "Lay with me. Talk to me. Tell me about the stars. Tell me what you did while we were apart. Tell me everything."

He watched her for a moment, propped on one elbow, and then he lay down on the other side of the pillows.

"Well. After you left me in the desert, I went off and sulked for a good long while. Then I had to stop running from the things that hurt me, and do what you did. Face my final farewells."

"Do you mean River?"

"She deserved that much."

"Yes she did. I'm glad you found a way to say goodbye and move on."

"Then it was Missy. All wrapped up in her own chaos, but finally caught in someone's web. They wanted me to execute her, you know. I couldn't do it." He let out a long breath. He'd tried to weigh the balance between all the evil things she'd done, all the lives she'd taken without pity or remorse, and the fate she so richly deserved, but he just couldn't do it. That was his shame. "I couldn't let her go without trying to find some good in her."

"How's that working out?"

"Okay. So far," he said slowly, wrestling with his hopes and fears. "I left her fixing the engines. I suppose I'll have to go back at some point and see how she's getting on."

"Hmm, not yet, though. You can stay a while."

"I'm a time traveler. I can stay as long as I like."

They talked long into the night. This was what he wanted as much as anything else. To hear her laugh. See her smile. To impress her with his stories, and listen to her tales and be impressed in return. When she finally fell asleep, he closed his eyes. His last thought, before he drifted to sleep, was that they could make this work.

The next morning, the Doctor woke to see Clara watching him.

She smiled and fluttered the briefest of kisses against his lips. "I never knew."

"What didn't you know?"

"That it could feel so nice. Sleeping with someone, while not actually, you know, _sleeping_ with someone."

He smiled and stretched. "It's not all about lust, you know."

Clara got up, and he averted his eyes, because lust could still be a distraction. Especially this time of the morning. If she noticed his discomfort, she didn't mention it.

She picked up the battle suit from the corner of the room and turned to him. "We've got a big day ahead of us."

#

Soon enough, the plans were made, and the Doctor felt the battle suit's carapace fold itself around him, clipping gently into place, contouring itself perfectly to his lean body. The shoulder pieces clicked out in layers and covered his upper arms. His spine tingled for a moment as the suit tapped into his neurological functions, adjusting itself to its wearer. The battle suits were for more than just show, like every piece of armor worn down the ages, they were designed to keep their wearers alive.

Clara stood in front of him with a coy smile on her face.

"What's so funny?"

"You." She traced a finger on the bronze whorl in the center on the breastplate, her eyes flitting up to his close-cropped hair and the scar on his cheek that she'd said was a bit sexy. "You look fierce," she said, and then kissed his lips fleetingly, lightly, because she understood now, as he did, that their contact must be brief. Then she tapped the chest plate with her fingertip. "My scary handsome genius from space."

Something shifted in his hearts, a wrench deep in his soul he didn't think was possible. Determination gripped him. He'd sort this, and they would find a way to be together, to love one another. He'd never wanted anyone more than he wanted her right then. The feeling terrified him. It was the same feeling that drove him to extraordinary lengths, the same feeling that trapped him in his own personal hell for so long.

"Now, promise me you'll play nice with Ashildr?" she was saying.

He snapped his attention back to her, and joked, "Do I have to?"

"Yes." She nodded emphatically.

He puffed out his cheeks in an faux-annoyed pout. "I'll do my best." He'd do anything. Anything for Clara Oswald. Clara touched the scar on his face, a ridged cross high on his cheek bone where Egret's dragon-tail had slashed him.

"I could use a waft of regeneration energy to get rid of that," he said, watching her eyes as he spoke, wondering if such things mattered to her.

"If you want," she said. "But I rather like it. It reminds me you fought a dragon for me." She pressed her lips to his briefly, letting them touch for a warm, lingering moment, just enough for them both to want more. With a dissatisfied murmur, she stepped away.

 **The Doctor Falls: Part two: Gallifrey**

"Right." The Doctor strode towards the Extraction Chamber. "You wait here and let me know if anyone—"

"Wait!" Ashildr hissed, grabbing his arm. "You can't just go barging in …"

"Yes I can. I'm a general." He tapped the four pips on his collar under the armor plating. Then he shoved the door to the chamber open.

The room was blindingly white, and the lone, white-suited technician at one of the three terminals in the room snapped immediately to attention.

"Is the trans-phasic subroutine quantum analysis ready for review?" the Doctor demanded.

"There must be some mistake—" the young woman began.

"Surely you've seen the interference on pattern Theta-Twentyfour-Twelve?"

"Oswald? Of course, Sir. We are monitoring it closely. I wasn't informed—"

"Never mind. I'm sure it's not your fault, er what's your name?"

"Akrahm Tahl, Sir."

"Right, Akrahm. Just bring up the suspect data lines for me to inspect." The technician jumped to the task and began to manipulate the controls on the instrument panel. She seemed young and keen, so young she could even be before her first regeneration. Something about her name seemed familiar, but he couldn't place her. The terminal's small screen was soon awash with scrolling columns of data.

"Aha. I see the problem," the Doctor said, tapping the screen. The pattern buffer that held Clara was being degraded with a low energy, intermittent bursts of khromatic energy.

"Where's that interference coming from?" The Doctor rubbed his chin. It was a weak signal, with shifting origin points.

Akrahm glanced at him, her eyes lingering on his face. "We don't know."

"How can we stabilise the pattern? Come on, Akrahm Tahl, you're a bright young thing."

"We have standing orders not to interfere with this particular extraction." The Doctor knew all about those orders. He'd hacked into the Time Lord systems and placed those orders himself, the moment he got his memories of Clara back.

The technician was staring at him now. "We could do a reboot," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Delete this version of Clara Oswald and extract her again."

"What, so my Clara wouldn't exist? No, absolutely not."

The young woman looked at him hard, recognition dawning on her. "You're _him_ , aren't you. They warned us you'd come back one day."

"Alright," the Doctor said. "You know who I am. Are you going to make a fuss, or are we going to continue this chat in a civilised manner? Because I'd really prefer the latter."

Akrahm considered, her eyes growing misty for a moment. "My brother fought with you under the Mountain of Serenity, at the beginning of the Time War."

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment. "Senior Tahl?"

"Yes."

"There are a lot of children on Gallifrey alive today because of what your brother did. He was a brave man."

Akrahm nodded, her eyes glistening. " _Everyone_ on Gallifrey is alive today because of what _you_ did. Some people have forgotten that. But not all of us."

The Doctor almost winced. For a moment he was back on the desert, his hearts broken, facing Rassilon and a firing squad. He shook his head to clear the memory.

Akrahm turned back to the console. "The only other way would be to construct a chrono-sensitive degradation buffer."

"Great. Hop along and fetch me one, then."

"Sorry, Sir. They were all destroyed in the Time War. We never found another source of stronite after Skull Moon fell, so we didn't construct any more."

The Doctor groaned. "Of course. But we still have the plans?"

"In the Vault."

Akrahm was already talking at his back. The Doctor dashed out of the chamber's door, signaling to Ashildr to follow him.

"Where are we going?" Ashildr said.

"The Vault."

"You'll trigger the motion sensors as soon as you go in there!" Akrahm yelled after him.

"Then we'll be quick!" he shouted back.

"What are we doing?" Ashildr yanked the Doctor's arm, forcing him to a halt. She was cross, he could see that. She'd been cross for the last hundred years as far as he could tell, and he was a little tired of it.

"We're stealing the plans to construct a chrono-sensitive degradation buffer to stop the chrono-lock breaking down. It's robbery. Should be right up your street."

"That was just a phase!" Ashildr scowled.

The Doctor deliberately softened his expression, remembering the promise he'd made Clara to try to be friends with Ashildr. "I'm not judging. I've been known to be a little light-fingered myself."

#

Clara led Drellmar and Egret through the tunnels and deep into the Cloisters. She'd often dreamed of this dark place. In the early days, during those long, sorrowful months when she mourned her life with the Doctor, she'd relived their moments in the Cloisters many times. After a while, the pain had faded, but the regret that she'd not told him how she felt sooner, said the words while they had a chance of translating into something real, stayed with her.

"What _is_ this place?" Egret whispered, tugging on Clara's sleeve.

"It's like … a memory bank."

"It feels more like a graveyard," Egret's trembling fingers still griped Clara's arm.

She gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. "Think of it more as a memorial. It's where Time Lords who have passed on have their minds and memories preserved. We should be able to get the dragon's mind out of your head and into the Matrix. Maybe stop your nightmares."

Egret nodded, his eyes wide. "Okay," he said, sounding about as far away from _okay_ as it was possible to be.

They pressed on past a Dalek spinning in hopeless circles, its eyestalk flaring blue and then fading. Its battle cry rang out weakly in the darkness. "Ex-term-in-ate. "Ex-term-in-ate."

Clara glanced at Drellmar. In the darkness her white skin and robes lost their brilliance and became grey, but her pale blue solid eyes were becoming brighter by the moment.

"This way," Drellmar said, pressing forward, as if something was calling to her. She stopped in front of six bronze seals the size of dustbin lids on a wall, each carved with complex Gallifreyan symbols. "At the Temple, we learned a little of the Time Lord Chapters and their history," she said, touching each seal in turn.

Egret traced the patterns in the seals, running his fingers around the swirling lines.

"Oh. The Doctor says he's from the Prydonian Chapter."

"There were six chapters in all. I think the Prydonian chapter holds power now, but there were five others." Drellmar went on in barely concealed awe. "I never expected to see the Cloisters."

They passed stone statues of fearsome angels, teeth bared. Egret pressed closer to Clara. She tried to shoot him a reassuring smile, but her own fears crept up her spine and jangled her nerves. They hurried on through the gloom.

Drellmar stopped in front of a large wall. At first Clara thought it was just part of the crypt, but she noticed more symbols on the wall. Drellmar found a dusty instrument panel. A headset was tucked in an alcove by the sides of one of the larger symbols.

"This will help us create a connection to the Matrix." Drellmar turned to Egret, who hung back by Clara's side.

"I'm not sure about this …" he said.

"It'll be okay, Egret," Clara whispered. "The quicker we do this, the sooner we can get out of here."

"I will be with you. There's nothing to fear," Drellmar said.

"With me? How? There's only one headset." Egret didn't step any closer. Then he jumped and yelped as a Cyberman lumbered past close behind him, dragging its leg, its head hung oddly, tilted to one side.

Egret took a quick step towards Drellmar. "What do we do?"

Drellmar studied the controls. "The dragon's line is horribly tangled with your own time-aura. To me, it looks like an angry red jagged line circulating around your regular yellow temporal aura. Inside the Matrix the dragon can emerge and separate from you."

"Do you know how to work this?" Clara asked, looking at the bewildering array of buttons and dials. She'd piloted a TARDIS for a hundred years, and could even decipher a bit of Gallifreyan writing, but this was way beyond anything she understood.

Drellmar shook her head. "I don't know how to operate it, not in the traditional sense. But I can connect to it." She carefully placed the headset device across Egret's head, so the end rested against his temple.

Egret closed his eyes. Drellmar touched his other temple lightly, using her fingers to press the identity filter the Doctor had given them against Egret's skin. She let the neural connectors fizz for a moment. Her lips parted slightly, and for a moment Clara thought she would lose her footing, but she stood tall.

"What do you see?" Clara whispered.

"Everything," Drellmar said. "I see everything."

#

Minutes later, the lift that had brought the Doctor and Ashildr through the Citadel and into the vault swished closed behind them.

The Doctor prised open an inspection panel by the lift's controls.

"What are you doing?"

"They'll detect us, but I'm scrambling the transit logs. They won't know which level we're on."

The data store itself was a huge cylinder, reaching to the arching roof above, and down many hundreds of metres below. There were several access levels above and below them, each with its own lift and control panel, but the Doctor had forgotten the sheer size of the place. Not to mention the uncomfortable chill of the air conditioning circulating around the column of sensitive data files. He and Ashildr walked a full circle around the data store, and stopped at the instrument panel, where a spherical data-retrieval bot was hovering between the console and the edge of the shaft.

"Your people don't believe in safety rails, then?" Ashildr said, peeking tentatively over the edge and at the sickening drop.

The Doctor shrugged. "It's Gallifrey." He used the console to close down the force-shield that protected the data chips, and set to work on the bot with his sonic screwdriver, programming it to find the plans for the chrono-sensitive degradation buffer. The sphere, about the size of a football, bleeped, and bobbed its way across the shaft and upwards before it disappeared around the back of the cylinder.

"What will this buffer thing do when we get it?"

"We're not getting the buffer. We're getting the plans to make the buffer. And when we've made it—if we can make it, because that's not going to be easy—then it will stop the chrono-lock breaking down and keep Clara safe from the Quantum Shade."

Ashildr nodded. "At least we agree on that." She sighed, her shoulders slumped, and he watched her from the corner of his eye. She said nothing more.

The retrieval bot bleeped and reappeared. The Doctor held out a hand, and the silver bot gave a series of trills. The lights on its surface flashed, and it ejected a bronze-coloured data chip, about the size of his thumbnail and covered in swirling Gallifreyan symbols, into his palm. "Thank you," the Doctor said to the bot. The little machine chirruped once.

From a level above, the lift pinged. The Doctor uttered a curse.

Two guards stepped out of the lift on the level two floors up. As they moved around the data core, only their boots and the bottoms of their red cloaks were visible. They stopped at the opposite side from where the Doctor and Ashildr stood.

The Doctor raised a finger to Ashildr to remain quiet.

"They're not on this level, Ma'am," one soldier's voice said.

A second, female voice spoke. "The detectors are malfunctioning. We need a visual search. Start inspecting all the levels. It might just be that bot going haywire again." Irritation clearly showed in her voice. "I'm going to decommission all the RB series bots if this happens again."

Steps above them moved towards the lift, and the remaining pair of boots moved toward the console.

The Doctor motioned Ashildr towards the lift. She nodded and they began to walk towards the lift.

The lift hissed, and the male soldier appeared on the level directly above them. He was closer now, and must have caught sight of them. He called down to them, "This is a restricted area—"

The Doctor grabbed the bot and hurled it towards the data store. It crashed into the rows of chips, sending a blue light arcing around the column as the defense shield reactivated.

Shouting. A shot fired.

Ashildr tried to yank the Doctor to the other side of the column, out of sight of the guard above, but another shot caught him a glancing blow on his shoulder. He stumbled and slipped towards the edge of the shaft. Ashildr grabbed his hand as he toppled. He scrambled for a grip on the edge.

"Doctor!" Ashildr flung herself to the floor. She got her hand around the neck piece of his armor, but he slipped further every moment.

He still had the data chip in his hand. He thrust it awkwardly to Ashildr. "Take this, and go."

"No!" she pulled desperately on him, but he could feel himself sliding. If she didn't let go, he'd pull her over too. "It's alright, Ashildr. Let go."

"No! Hold on! I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did back on Earth. I'm sorry I've been so mean." Words spilled like rain, a rush of emotions in her eyes.

"There's no time," he said, glancing down. "It will be okay. Just let go."

Ashildr choked back whatever she was going to say.

"Ashildr! Run now!" he bellowed. His hand slipped further from hers. "Get the chip to Clara and Drellmar in the Cloisters."

The Doctor's hand slipped from hers, and he fell away from her, spinning into the bright light below, his red suit soon a distant speck.

The lift behind her pinged. Ashildr shoved the chip in her pocket, leaped up and flattened herself against the wall alongside the lift.

Ashildr's heart raced, and she choked back a sob. There was no time to worry about the Doctor now. She had to deal with this and get back to Drellmar and Clara. Immediately the lift opened she launched herself at the guard's arm, wrenching the gun from his outstretched hand and sweeping her elbow up into his jaw. He staggered backwards. Ashildr ducked into the lift behind him, his gun now neatly in her hand.

"Out!" she commanded, and when he didn't move fast enough she shoved him full in the chest. "Watch yourself," she said grimly, as he staggered towards the edge of the shaft. "It's a long fall."

#

"What do you see?" Drellmar heard Clara's voice, but she couldn't see her at all. Instead, she saw an overwhelming burst of images, rushing by so fast it was hard to make out any individual element. She gasped, her knees weakening. She felt Clara's hands around her, steadying her. "I see the future and the past," she whispered. "All that ever was and ever could be, the beginning and the end."

"What about Egret?"

"He's here. At least I think he is." Drellmar saw the dragon in the distance. It didn't roar or breathe flames like it had in the cave, but rather it sat, wings taut, as if it was ready for flight. She willed herself towards it.

"You are free, my friend. But first, would you tell me something?"

The dragon turned its head, and Drellmar felt rather than heard its agreement. It sniffed the air, as if it were tasting freedom.

"The Dark Stars. Who controls them?" Drellmar asked, quickly.

"The First of Six," the Dragon said, its voice low and lyrical. It eased its great leathery forward and back, as if it had not truly flown in a long time.

"The First of Six? What does that mean? How do I find them?"

"Beyond. Above, below, in between." The dragon's voice sounded in her mind. It lifted its head, pawing the black space that was the ground with glittering claws, its body coiled, ready to spring.

"What does this have to do with my friends?" Drellmar called to the dragon. At that moment it launched itself into the air.

"The hybrid can seal the door. That is why the First fears the hybrid."

"This First, what does it want?" Drellmar called.

"To fill the vacuum. To rule over all."

Before Drellmar could ask any more questions, the dragon flapped its powerful wings, its bronze scales shining impossibly bright through the darkness. It circled above Drellmar. As she watched, her own heart seemed to soar with the beast, circling ever upwards and out of sight. Drellmar clutched her chest for a moment, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Freedom. _That's what freedom tastes like._

When Drellmar opened her eyes, Clara was squatting by her side. "Are you okay?"

Drellmar nodded. Egret stood beside Clara, with a peaceful smile playing on his lips. "Are _yo_ u alright?" Drellmar asked him. But she could see he was even before he answered. His own timeline was simple yellow once more, the red, angry dragon-line gone.

"I feel better than I have in a long while."

#

Ashildr dodged behind an open door while three Time Lords hurried past. They were all dressed in that ridiculous get-up, high collars at the back of their necks, the red robes dragging on the floor. She tried to calm herself. She kept seeing the Doctor fall. It was a long way, but this was the Doctor. He might yet be okay. She had to believe that. When the Time Lords had passed, Ashildr hurried down the corridor and found the lift the Doctor had told them about. To use the enhanced transmat to punch through the Time Lords' shield barrier and get back to the Diner, parked in the desert outside the Citadel, they had to all be together. As soon as the Time Lords detected the transmat activity they would be on high alert. There wouldn't be a second chance.

The lift opened onto the darkness of the Cloisters. She'd been here once, long ago in the far future, sitting in a reality bubble at the end of time. She couldn't bear to go back to those cold, lonely days. Even though Clara was bossy and stubborn, and they argued more than was probably healthy, Ashildr needed her. More than she cared to admit. Loneliness was the curse of a long life.

Ashildr made her way through the gloom until she saw Drellmar's white outline in the shadows. Relief washed through her when she saw the Portant. She didn't have to pretend with Drellmar. The more she got to know her, the more she hoped Drellmar would stay.

"Ashildr," Drellmar said, quickly pulling her into a hug. "What's wrong?"

Clara was by her side. "Where's the Doctor?"

Ashildr held onto Drellmar's hand for a moment. She didn't know what to say. She didn't _know_ what had happened. "I'm sorry. He fell."

"What? Where?"

"We were caught in the data core. He fell into the shaft."

"We have to find him!"

"I'm so sorry, Clara. I couldn't hold him! He told me to come here."

"We're not leaving without him," Clara said firmly.

Ashildr didn't know what else to say. Clara had the transmat in her pocket, so that was that.

"What's that?" This was Egret, who had been standing quietly watching until now. He pointed at a shadowy white-faced figure glitching like a damaged data file.

"Uh oh. Cloister Wraiths. The Time Lords know we're down here." Clara led them away from the Wraith as sickening howl echoed in the darkness.

Footsteps, boots, sounded at the far end of the Cloisters. Low voices. The Wraith flitted across Ashildr's vision. A painful flash of memory of the Doctor's red battle suit spinning away from her crashed into her mind. She bit her lip, her stomach churning over. Through the darkness, Drellmar's hand found hers.

"It's alright," Drellmar said softly. Her touch was comforting, and Ashildr felt a surge of something unfamiliar. Gratitude, maybe.

They pressed on together in the dark.

#

Clara paused for a moment to get her bearings. The bottom of that shaft must be on these lower levels. But in her heart she knew they might search this labyrinth for a long time and find nothing. But a fall couldn't stop him. Not the Doctor. Not _her_ Doctor. How terrible it would be if they found him changed. She didn't want to think about that. He would still be the Doctor, of course, but she wanted _this_ Doctor. He was the man she loved.

The Dalek, the same one, or maybe another, it was impossible to tell, spun itself in between Clara and the others following her. Its weapon exploded the wall by her head.

She jolted, turned sharply as Egret yelped. He, Ashildr, and Drellmar were the other side of the Dalek now.

"Go back the other way!" Clara called. "I'll try to get around." She searched the darkness, desperate to find another route that wasn't a dead end, or didn't conceal a Wraith or some other monstrosity.

Clara was quite alone now. She turned into an alcove, and then tried to back out as she saw it was a dead end. The shadows seemed alive, the walls crawling. Her head started to pound. Where was the Doctor?

She spun as a something brushed her shoulder. A Wraith, its terrible features pale and twisted, bore down on her. She lost her footing scrambling back. The Wraith stretched out a skeletal hand. Clara screamed into the darkness.

Then a figure was next to her, warm hands helping her up, his voice in her ear. "Clara." He was moving awkwardly, his battle armour twisted, but he was unmistakably her Doctor. She gasped in relief. They backed away together. He threw something, it looked like a metal football, at the Wraith. There was a blinding flash. The Wraith disintegrated in a burst of static.

The Doctor leaned on the wall, breathing hard.

"Are you hurt?" Clara asked.

"Help me get this off," he said, his breath labored. "I found the anti-grav function a little too late to slow me down completely, but soon enough to stop me being smashed into my next body."

Clara helped him to undo the mangled carapace. "Thank God you did." Part of the metal shell had twisted, torn his undershirt, and pierced the skin under his ribs.

"Too bad, you might have got a younger man," he said, wincing.

Clara tutted. "Let's get one thing straight, shall we? I want you. No one else. Not the next man, or woman come to that. You." She kissed him lightly on the lips, briefly to prevent the necklace zipping off on one of its reality ripping frenzies. "Don't you remember what I told you when we were here before?"

He shook his head. "I don't. Such a lot came back. But not that."

"I told you I love you. That I've always loved you and I always will, and I didn't expect you to say it back. I still don't. I get it. You and me, we're an aberration. I'm a blip on your radar, a drop in your ocean. You are the mountain and I'm a mayfly. I accept that. I still love you."

He smiled gently, and shook his head. "Clara, you couldn't be more wrong. What did I say back?"

Clara sighed. "You didn't even get the chance. Ohila and the general came bursting in."

"That sounds about right." He smiled a sad smile. "You, you are the whole universe to me. Everything, all of time, all of space. I loved you then, and I love you now."

He pulled her to him, crashing his lips to hers for a moment, and then stepping just far enough away. "I know I can't touch you right now. But I won't rest until we beat this, Clara. I've got the plans for a device that should stabilise the chrono-lock. We'll find a way to be together. I promise."

"Clara! Doctor!" Ashildr called, her voice low.

The Doctor looked more comfortable now he was free of the suit, although the patch of blood on the side of his Bowie T-shirt bothered Clara. Drellmar ushered Egret along, and they all gathered around the transmat, each with a thumb or finger in contact with the device. Clara hit the activation button. The light on top of the device lit up red, blasting a signal to penetrate the Citadel's shields.

"We need to go," Egret said, looking over his shoulder. "The guards are coming." His voice was low with panic. Clara put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Just a few more seconds. The light will go green when we're clear." She tried to sound confident, but she could hear the soldiers' boots thudding on the floor and voices barking orders in the dark.

At last, the light flashed from red to green. The Doctor hit the transmat button.

The Cloisters vanished. There was a moment of unreality, a bright light in the void, and then they were back on the Diner.

#

Twenty minutes later, in the medbay under Clara's insistent gaze, the Doctor lifted his shirt while Ashildr tended the wound beneath his ribs.

"It's nothing. I heal quickly," he said, forcing himself to sit still and be treated. It probably made Ashildr feel better about the whole falling business. Not to mention Clara wouldn't take no for an answer.

"It's _not_ nothing. It could get infected." Clara watched as Ashildr cleansed the gash with antiseptic spray.

"How did you …" Ashildr started.

"That battle suit. It has external gravity dampeners. I just had a spot of trouble remembering how to activate them." He had plunged for long seconds before he remembered the battle suit's special functions. He'd used one before, on Skull Moon. It had saved his life then, too.

Ashildr finished her ministrations, and he let the shirt fall. Clara gave him a satisfied smile, reached her hand out as if she was going to touch his knee, and then stopped herself. He tried a consoling smile. He wasn't sure he exactly succeeded.

Drellmar and Egret walked into the medbay.

The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "So, what did you find from the Matrix?" the Doctor asked, getting up from the bed where he'd been perched.

"Well, it didn't make much sense," Drellmar began. "The dragon said the Dark Star was controlled by the 'first of six' whatever that means."

"Go on."

"This, person, or whatever it is, is to be found somewhere 'above, below, between'. The dragon also said the 'the first wanted to fill the vacuum,' but that 'the hybrid could seal the door.' I'm sorry, I don't know what any of that means."

The Doctor rubbed his neck, twitching his nose to one side as he considered Drellmar's words. "Interesting." He paced to the other side of the medbay, tugging his fingers through his hair. He stopped when he found his hair shorter. There was so little to tug now. He'd got used to those springy curls.

"Six _what_?" he said, pacing the medbay. It was easier to think when he was moving. "The Six Fates of the Draconian Dominion? No, that's just a story, and not a very good one." He tapped his forefinger finger lightly against his thumb as ideas rattled through his brain. "Verbatim Six! Planet full of writers. They knew how to tell a story."

"Why would they be interested in Gallifrey?"

The Doctor conceded that point, and continued his pacing.

"Nova-Kain Six?" Ashildr said. "We went there once, do you remember, Clara?"

"Yes, but they were a peaceful race, devoted to mathematics and logic."

"Six impossible things," the Doctor mumbled.

"There were six seals on the wall by that Matrix device," Egret said.

The Doctor grabbed the boy by his shoulders. "Brilliant! There's six Chapterhouses on Gallifrey. Rassilon was the Grand Master of the Prydonian Chapter."

"Could this be him?" Clara said.

"I suppose it could. But, although the Prydonian Chapter became the most powerful, it wasn't the first to be founded."

"Which one was?"

"An obscure Chapter called Scendeles. Never very powerful. Founded by Primus Eutenoyar. During the Time War there was an upsurge in his followers, a little cult formed, but I thought that all died down."

"So, what if he's back?"

The Doctor sighed. "Indeed. When people want to claw their way into power, it's rarely because they have a burning desire to plant rose gardens and make sure the city's bins are emptied regularly."

Ashildr put the a-septic spray back into a cupboard, and then turned to the Doctor. "What does he want, then, this Primus?"

"I don't know. But I do know who might." The Doctor shot Clara a glance. She had been there in the Cloisters the last time he had dealings with the Sisterhood of Karn. "If I'm very lucky, they might just tell us what we need to know _before_ they try to kill me."


	13. Chapter 13: Joining

After the drama of Gallifrey, they all needed some space to wind down. Drellmar and Ashildr disappeared together. Egret had sulked around the console room for a while, but in the end he went to bed. Clara said she was tired and in need of a shower. The Doctor looked at her awkwardly, not sure if that was an invitation or a dismissal.

They walked together to her room.

"Will you stay?" she'd asked him. "I mean, its okay if you've got other things to do …"

Somehow, that simple question made him feel awkward but happy. "No. I mean I've nothing I want to do. I could—"

She pushed the door and stepped though, leaving it open, as if this was what they did now. They stayed together here in her room.

"I'm going to take a shower," she said, and disapeared into the bathroom.

He kicked off his boots, took off his coat, and perched on the side of the bed. While she showered, he examined the plans for the Chrono-sensitive Degradation Buffer they'd liberated from the vault. He could build it, if he could get the parts. It would be getting the stronite and finding a safe place to activate the whole contraption that would be difficult.

"Can you build it?" Clara said, emerging from the shower room and flopping onto the bed.

"Oh, I think so. We'll need a source of stronite to make it work," he said, glancing up at her.

"So this will sort my body out?"

"You could put it like that," he said, eyes drawn to the top button of her silk pajamas, all his resolve weakening. Perhaps this wasn't such a bright idea after all. If he touched her he'd open the door to the Shade. "I'm trying quite hard not to think about sorting your body out right now."

"Oh. Sorry. Kind of." She did up the button, and lay on the bed, the other side of the pillow barrier she'd constructed to keep them safely apart. The corner of her eyes wrinkled in a coy smile that sent his pulse soaring.

He put the plans down, still perching uneasily on the side of the bed, unsure if he should suggest what was playing on his mind. It might ease their frustration. It would bring them closer, and certainly be pleasurable. But he hesitated. A full mental connection wasn't something to do lightly. Once he'd been inside her head, he couldn't unknow what he found there. And neither could she. Were they ready for this? He closed his eyes for a moment. She was already in his head. In his hearts. Irrevocably. She'd never really left despite the time they spent apart. Wasn't being afraid their downfall the first time around?

"Are you coming to bed?" she said, looking at him with those eyes that made his hearts melt.

"Clara," he began, tentatively. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do. Always. What's brought this on?"

"I just …" he hesitated, fear gripping him. "I want to share something with you. If you agree, we could …"

She shot him a puzzled look. "What?"

"Ah. It's probably easier to show you." He lay by her side. "Look into my eyes. I mean, this is easier if we are touching, but it's still possible."

"Okay … what are we doing?"

"Sharing mental constructs. Creating a telepathic bridge between us as a form of intimacy, since we can't touch each other. It won't hurt. I'll brush against the areas of your brain that stimulate pleasurable brain chemicals. A little bit of oxycoctin. A drop of vasopressin."

"How will that work?"

"We've shared a neural connections before. At the North Pole. And those weeks we were seeing each other recently. The pathways are already there. Don't worry. I won't access your memories."

Clara shifted herself on the bed to better gaze into his eyes. "Is this … is this how Time Lords love one another?"

"It's one of the ways. As well as other, more obvious ways." He tried to suppress a blush, but couldn't, and she saw it. A pang of vulnerability shot through him. He hated being driven by his baser instincts. He'd worked hard over the years to get past that. But just lately he wasn't in the drivers seat anymore.

"What do I do?" she said.

"Just relax. Let me in. If you don't like it, I'll know and I'll stop, okay?"

He looked into her eyes until she became his whole world. Nothing else mattered but her kind, brown eyes. Just the gentle pop and crackle of synapses firing and resetting as the universe flared and faded. He skimmed highways of her mind, passing by junctions and doorways he wouldn't open unless she offered. Bursts of emotion flicked into his awareness.

Curiosity. Friendship. Sometimes shadows and fear. More often exhilaration and joy. A deep kindness radiating from her bones, the very essence of Clara. Love. A love so powerful it startled him.

He pulled back for a moment. "Are you okay?" he whispered, breaking the spell for a moment.

Don't stop

He pushed further, exploring delicate, branching brain structures. He nudged against her nucleus accumbens, releasing a shower of dopamine. He felt rather than heard her murmur and sigh. He rode the wave of chemicals, her pleasure becoming his own, her warmth spreading through his body. They were truly joined.

How do you feel? he asked without words.

Alive. I feel alive. How is this possible? I'm still time locked.

In real-time, yes. But we're somewhere else now.

Oh, god, she moaned gently.

Her emotions cascaded into him, until was impossible to know where she ended and he began. All he knew was the complex elegance of her mind, the deep compassion of her heart, the soft, gentle thrum of her soul. They became twisted, entwined, endless. Stronger together. Better together. A sense of belonging overtook him. It was his turn to gasp now, at the unfamiliar rush of sensations in his body, as the acute angles and sharp places in his soul filled with her gentle love. He was home. He eased back, as it was too perfect. Too much. Overwhelming.

Doctor? Are you alright?

He flopped onto his back, the intensity of the moment draining him. "I'm fine," he whispered. "You?"

She nodded, her eyes bright. "That was … amazing. I haven't … I've never felt anything like that before."

A residual flush coloured her cheeks. It pleased him to think he had brought her pleasure. "Chemistry," he said, propping himself up on his elbow.

She laughed. "We've always had that. But this was something more. Like we were … I don't know how to explain it."

He did, although he was a little reluctant to say the word.

She went on. "It's probably silly. But I thought …"

"What?"

"I felt …" she turned over on her side to face him, her hair falling over her face as she spoke. "Did you feel it? Like we became …"

He nodded, and said the words as she did. "The hybrid. Yes, but there was nothing wrong about it, Clara." He didn't want her to be afraid. He didn't want anything to mar the perfect sweetness of their first intimate moment.

"I'm not afraid," she said. "Nothing's felt more right in my entire life. We're meant to be together, Doctor. I feel it." She brought her hand to her heart, clutching the necklace. "We have to fix this. We can't lose each other now."

"We won't. We've come this far. We'll go to Karn and find out what the Sisterhood knows about Primus. Then we'll make the Degradation Buffer and get you stabilised."

"Won't we need some of that stronite? I thought it was all gone."

"Well it is. But I've got an idea about that. How do you fancy playing pirates?"

She opened her eyes briefly, and smiled, "I'd like that." She reached out a hand to touch his face, and then let it fall back to the pillow. "What you just did for me. Can you teach me to do that for you?"

"Do you want to?"

"Of course."

"It will take a bit of time. And patience."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, pressing the briefest of kisses to his lips.

 **Karn**

"You!" Ohila stood, arms folded, in the mouth of a cave, and glared at the Doctor and Clara, while sisters in red robes milled behind her in the depths of the cave.

"Yes, yes. I've got a nerve showing up here," the Doctor said, waving a careless arm. "I'm an irresponsible idiot who runs away. You should probably kill me right now and be done with it, but I'd only talk you out of it. How about we skip all that, and you just tell me what I need to know?"

"Why? Why should we tell you anything?" Ohila demanded, her red cloak rustling in Karn's breeze. The mountainside was bleak, even by Karn's standards, and the light was fading fast.

Clara stepped into the gloom of the cave. "Because if you do, I'll tell you what he told me in the Cloisters."

Ohila narrowed her eyes. She paused for a long moment. "Very well. Primus Eutenoyar's star has been quietly rising for years. He was known as a trickster, a charlatan. No one took him seriously. But he's amassed tremendous power by subverting dark energy and inserting himself into the narrative of the universe, as if he's always been there. Calls himself the First now. He wants to insert himself as High President of Gallifrey. His twisted vision of restoring balance is a grave threat to all creation. His manifesto is clear. Anything he deems out of place, he will remove by executive order."

"That sounds bad. But What's that got to do with us? Why does he hate the Doctor and me?"

"Because you represent everything he is not. He is powerful, yet utterly alone." Ohila sighed, crossing the cave floor and gazing into a small pool of water that shimmered unnaturally in the dark. She ran a finger across the water's surface, sending ripples outwards. "The Matrix predicts at the darkest hour, the Hybrid can defeat the First. He's spent so long alone with his thoughts, hiding in the shadows, that he's lost perspective. He sees through a glass, darkly. He thinks you two are the hybrid."

The Doctor wanted to dismiss that idea as foolishness. But after last night, after the ecstasy of their second joining, he really couldn't.

"What are the Time Lords doing about Primus?" he asked, although he feared he knew the answer.

"The usual thing. Ignoring the problem until it's too late, then talking in circles. Being generally pompous and ineffective. Some even believe his coming would be for the better."

"Great," Clara said. "How do we defeat him?"

"At great cost." Ohila took a step towards Clara, staring intently at her. "You don't have much time. Your tether to the chrono-lock is weak. The Quantum Shade is ever in your shadow."

The Doctor stepped between Clara and Ohila. He'd heard enough. If Primus Eutenoyar was harnessing dark energy, then he'd leave a trail.

Ohila raised a hand, piercing him with her eyes. "If you still value this one, then you had better be quick."

"Oh, I intend to be," he said, turning to leave.

Ohila grasped Clara by the arm. "What did he say, girl, in the Cloisters?"

Clara leaned towards Ohila and whispered something in her ear. Ohila's eyes went wide. She dropped Clara's arm.

Clara smiled, catching the Doctor's eye, offering him a sly wink as they left the cave.

"What did you tell her?" The Doctor said as they walked back down the mountain to the Diner.

Clara just grinned. "You probably don't want to know." She became suddenly serious, her lips setting in determination. "We have to get this buffer built."

#

When they returned to the Diner, they found Drellmar and Ashildr waiting for them.

"What now?" Ahsildr asked.

"The prime objective is to secure a source of stronite and construct an operational Degradation Buffer. Protect Clara from the Quantum Shade. Once we've done that, we can think about dealing with Primus Eutenoyar, or the First, or whatever he's calling himself."

Ashildr glanced at Drellmar. "Will you stay?" she said. Clara couldn't fail to notice the hopeful look in her friends eye. The Portant smiled softly. Although Clara still felt a shiver of unease whenever she was around Drellmar, her influence over Ashildr seemed wholly positive. For that reason if nothing else, Clara hoped Drellmar would stay.

"I will help, if I can," Drellmar said, in her calm, soft voice.

Ashildr smiled. "What about Egret? He was moping the hole time you two were on Karn.

"He could stay with us," Drellmar said.

"We could take him back to Fyrian. Find his family," the Doctor suggested.

"I think we need to ask him what he wants," Clara said. She'd dealt with enough teenagers to know that anything adults decided for them would probably be the opposite of what they actually wanted. Besides, the Doctor had mentioned pirates.

"This Skull Moon, with the stronite. How are we going to get at it?"

The Doctor grinned. "Well I'm glad you asked. Have you ever stowed away on a space-fairing buccaneer's schooner?


	14. Chapter 14: Skull Moon

"So, Egret, what's it to be?" the Doctor asked, his fingers hovering over the TARDIS navigation board. He already knew the answer. He recognised the look in Egret's eyes. That deep yearning was something the Doctor knew only too well, and had worked hard to forget.

Home.

He could take Egret home, but there was always a price, never a get-out-of-jail-free card to be easily swiped from the deck. Even time travel came with a cost.

"I'm sorry, but I can't take you back to a time where you, that is dragon you, is living under the mountain. Too great a risk of a paradox."

Egret nodded slowly. "I understand. But if my sister lives, I want to see her. I owe her that." He looked first at Clara, and then at Ashildr and Drellmar. "I want to thank you for what you've done. I'll never forget you."

With a sad smile, the Doctor gestured the opening door.

Egret raised his eyebrows in surprise. "We're already here?"

The Doctor nodded. He hated goodbyes. It was much easier, he'd found, to act swiftly, decisively, and move on.

Clara pulled the boy into a hug. "We won't forget you either," she promised.

The boy smiled, hugged her back warmly, and took a deep breath before stepping towards the door.

Perhaps Clara's way had _some_ merits. It was kinder.

Clara flicked on the external viewscreen. They all watched as Egret made his way across an empty market square in the early morning sun, towards a small cottage. He knocked at a weather-beaten wooden door, glancing back at the Diner as he waited. An old woman answered the door. Bent almost double, her face craggy with age, she stared at him for a long moment. Egret hung his head. Then she flung her arms around his shoulders.

"How long will they have together?" Clara asked.

Drellmar closed her eyes briefly. "Long enough to say what needs to be said."

The Doctor moved deliberately around the console, and with a glance at Clara, shut off the viewscreen. Her way might be kinder, but his hurt less.

He rubbed his hands swiftly together. "Right. Who's up for chasing down some pirates?"

#

Later that day, after patiently listening to the Doctor, Clara's brow drew into a perplexed frown. She'd seen a lot of strange things over the years, but this was clearly stretching it. "Okay. We need the stronite, and obviously we need to get it before Skull Moon is destroyed in the Time War, because it's not found anywhere else. What I _don't_ understand is why there are replica sailing ships floating around in space."

"Skull Moon exists in a pocket of space-time where time ships and other fusion-powered vessels can't operate. Travel depends on harnessing solar winds. I suspect there's an element of theatre involved."

Clara squinted at him, obviously not sure if he was joking or not.

He shrugged, and grinned. "Just accept it."

Ashildr seemed to have less trouble with the idea, and was grinning. "You know, before I took up highway robbery, I had a stint on the _Lady Anne_. Scourge of the seven seas.

"I bet you did," the Doctor mumbled. But Ashildr didn't react to his goading. He went on, "The stronite is mined by the Lexihorns, a race well adapted to surviving in the harsh environment on Skull Moon. They transport the ore on refinery ships, and sell it to the highest bidder."

"So we are going to raid one of the refinery ships?" Ashildr asked, a little too keenly for the Doctor's taste.

"No. There's four of us, and the mining ships are heavily guarded. We use brains, not brawn. We don't need an awful lot of the stuff to power the degradation buffer. I happen to know that the pirate vessel _Midnight Shadow_ raids the _Farraguette_."

"So, we join the party, and liberate enough stronite to get the degradation buffer working?" Clara said.

The Doctor grinned, an odd kind of pride glowing in his chest, because she knew him so well. "Exactly!"

"But if time ships won't operate …" Ashildr said, puzzled. "How are we going to board the vessels?"

"Brains, not brawn," the Doctor repeated, striding out of the console room and towards the Diner's considerable wardrobe.

#

By that night, the plans were made, costumes fitted, psychic papers prepared. Clara and Ashildr were to stow away on the _Moonlight Shadow_. The Doctor and Drellmar would post as Ore Inspectors on the _Farraguette._ The only detail the Doctor lacked was exactly when the _Shadow_ would raid the _Farraguette_. Clara and Ashildr's job was to discover that. Clara would send a message to the Doctor via the psychic paper so he could prepare their escape. In the confusion of the raid, they would snatch a case of stronite and escape in one of the _Farraguette's_ life pods _._

In their small bathroom, while Clara brushed her teeth, the Doctor perched on the closed lid of the loo, examining details on a hand-held data tablet. "The _Farraguette's_ escape pods are ZX20 Lifesaver class pods. Simple enough to operate as long as I can access the right codes. I'll have to get access to the vessel's mainframe to do that."

"Shouldn't be a problem, should it?"

"Give me two minutes and a sonic device, and nothing is a problem," he said.

Clara laughed. "So modest."

He looked up. "You looked rather appealing in that pirates get-up, I have to say."

She smiled. "Why Doctor, I didn't think you noticed."

"I notice everything," he said. Right now, she wore those peach satin pyjamas again, the ones that clung to her body in all the right places. So soft, so close, so tempting.

He stood up and placed the datapad in his pocket, stepping closer to her, always aware that touching would set off a quantum tear, but drawn to her all the same. All his lives spinning at the edge of Clara Oswald. They had never been closer, and he'd never felt more frustrated that he couldn't touch her. His eyes fell on the top button of her pyjamas, flapping open like it always did. That loose button gave him sleepless nights.

" _Noticing_ is not a problem. It's not being able to anything about it that's driving me crazy," he whispered, his voice like gravel.

"If I could help you with that, I would," she whispered, turning her face up to him.

He was torturing himself, and he knew it. An exquisite game he loved and hated in equal measure. "Well," he finally said. "You can help me by keeping this button done _up._ He worked his fingers around the satin, avoiding her skin as he fastened the tiny button. "What are you grinning about?"

"Check your psychic paper."

He whipped the wallet from his pocket. He opened it and immediately snapped it shut again. His whole body flooded with heat. "That, Clara Oswald," he growled, "doesn't help _at all."_

#

Later, aboard the _Midnight Shadow._

It had started off according to plan. Clara and Ashildr, complete with knee-length boots, tricorne hats, and ruffled white shirts, had snuck aboard the _Midnight Shadow_ at Anchorage, a rowdy, half-legal spaceport dealing in everything from clapped-out service driods to sentient plants. They had joined the throng of drunken space-dogs and other detritus that made up the crew of the _Shadow_ as they stumbled back from shore-leave. As soon as they boarded the _Shadow_ , Ashildr guided Clara to the aft deck, and pointed at a barrel.

"You must be joking," Clara hissed.

Ashildr grinned. "Time tech might not work here. But trans-dimensional engineering does." She dropped a small black device, no bigger than Clara's thumbnail, into the barrel. In moments the space inside expanded. A sofa appeared. A floor, with a carpet no less, and a table and small stove at the side. "The Doctor may not bother with home comforts, but I do."

Clara had to admit Ashildr was right. If she'd been with him now, undoubtedly they would have spent the next few hours crammed into ridiculously tight spaces, and freezing cold or burning hot, depending on how fortune fell. She raised an appreciative eyebrow at Ashildr. This was _much_ better. As she slipped into the barrel, and then fixed them both a latte, she hoped Drellmar and the Doctor were faring as well.

#

"Ore inspection? We had one last week!" The Lexihorne chief engineer, Astrider Cole, yelled above the grinding machinery. Her face, naturally red, turned a shade redder. The two stubby horns on her forehead lowered in what the Doctor guessed was a defensive gesture. "Contaminant levels are the lowest they've ever been. Way under Galactic safety limits." She narrowed her yellow eyes. "Is this the unions again?"

"Judging by your safety record, I'd say you couldn't have too many inspections," Drellmar said coldly.

Cole eyed Drellmar with contempt. "Well. I'm sure you know the drill. The record room is through there. We _won't_ be stopping to let you off until we reach Cloud Base. So don't even bother asking the Captain." With a flick of her arm, she indicated a small room at the back of the clattering, hot factory. Particles of unrefined stronite filled the air, tainting it with a recognisable, stinging odour. The Doctor hadn't smelled that wretched stink since the Time War. For a moment, he was back on Skull Moon, soldiers falling around him, choking in the dust of the collapsing stronite mines. He almost stumbled.

Drellmar clasped his arm. "All that is many years from now, my friend. We must focus on what we have to do today."

He squeezed her hand briefly as they moved through the shop floor's sweltering heat. "How did you know about their poor safety record?"

Drellmar drew in a sharp breath, nodding at a nearby cluster of red-skinned workers. "One only has to look at the life-auras surrounding these unfortunates to know."

The Doctor met the eye of one of the young men, his horns cut back brutally close to his head. Horn length was a mark of status among the Lexihorne. Only the wealthy and powerful were permitted to keep their fine, sharp horns. The young man coughed, and returned to work, stoking the furnace that generated the high temperature needed to refine the stronite.

"Why don't they use modern technology?" Drellmar said, as they entered the record room.

The Doctor closed the door, relieved to block out the noise and the worst of the smell. "Oh, you'll get a few hours out of most tech in this zone, but unless it's extensively shielded like the ship's computer system, after that the null-field does for it. They have to rely on old-fashioned methods. Hence the sails on the top deck."

Drellmar's pale face, if it was possible, became more ashen, her cheeks seeming to hollow out before the Doctor's eyes. "Something's wrong, here."

He could feel it too, a heaviness in his chest, the creeping, insidious claw of stronite in his lungs. He could de-metabolise it, with a little effort. But only because of his Time Lord training. He accessed the factory ship's computer, scrolling through spools of data on the recent inspection, and then spinning off to covertly look at the rest of the ship's manifest and flight-plan.

"That's interesting," he said, rubbing his chin.

"What?"

"That last inspection wasn't as thorough as Chief Cole would have us believe. The stronite particulate levels in the ventilation system are alarmingly high."

#

Clara peeped out of her barrel hide-away, a little dizzy at what she saw. The deck was busy with pirates, human and alien alike, adjusting the sails, sharpening swords, and swabbing the deck. The pirate captain stood the center of the deck, with his hands on his hips. Above, was a shimmering force field, and beyond that a glittering array of stars.

Clara blinked a couple of times. Had she stepped out of one story and into another? The captain wore a black tricorne hat, with long dreadlocked hair spilling down his back. He had a short goatee beard, black knee-length boots, and really, all he was missing was an eye patch and a parrot. He leant lazily on a long, broad sword, surveying his crew.

"Remind me why I bother with you lot, you dregs of the silver surf?" he roared.

"Because we're the finest crew this side of the Mantaria Nebulae?" one green-skinned sailor piped up.

"'Cos we're the only ones fool enough to work for ya, more like," said another female Lexihorne sailor, her horns short, but sharpened to points.

The captain roared with laughter. "Ah, me crew! You're fine fools indeed!"

"He's straight out of the Caribbean," Clara said.

"He's too short. Looks more like he's out of a pantomime. Anyway, we have to get a look at their charts. Find out when they are planning to raid the _Farraguette._ " Ashildr returned to the barrel-room, and sat beside Clara. "So, you and the Doctor. You're living together now? He disappears into your room every night."

"Ashildr," Clara said, trying to keep cool. Ashildr hadn't brought the topic up in a while, and Clara had hoped her friend had got past this paranoia about the Doctor. "I don't concern myself with what's going on in _your_ bedroom," she snapped. Clara was pretty sure she knew where Drellmar had been spending _her_ nights. To tell the absolute truth, Clara still wasn't comfortable around Drellmar, but the Doctor had explained the way Portant's interacted with the temporal auras left people feeling uncomfortable, without ever knowing why. It was a terrible cross for Portants, but one Drellmar bore with dignity. "I just want you to be happy. Isn't that enough?"

Ashildr sighed. "I want you to be happy, too." She paused, and looked at Clara with a wry smile. "I just made us fail the Bechdel test, didn't I?"

Clara had to laugh. "I suppose you did. But I don't think Bechdel would have objected to us too much. You and me, we both have our own lives, make our own choices. I just happen to think my life is better with him in it."

"Fair enough," Ashildr said, squeezing Clara's hand.

In the seconds that followed, two things happened at once. The technology transforming their empty barrel into a bigger-on-the-inside luxury hideaway flickered, faltered, and began to fail. At the same time, a face with a goatee beard, and now up close Clara could see he also had a jolly gold hoop earring in his left ear, appeared at the top of the barrel.

"Well what have we here? Two pups in a barrel?" he said, with grim amusement in his eyes. "I'd hop out of there, if you don't want to end up rather closer friends than you intended."

Clara and Ashildr both scrambled out, seconds before the barrel's inside collapsed back to its regular dimensions.

The captain stared hard at Clara, so hard she drew back. Then he suddenly swivelled about and yelled, "Second!"

The sharp-horned Lexihorne woman was at his side in moments, grumbling. "We've sailed together for months now. Would it kill you to learn my name?"

"I _know_ your name. But Second suits you."

"I'm the _first_ officer. That makes me—"

"Disposable. Now, _Number Two_ , what shall we do with these naughty stowaways?"

The disposable red-skinned woman grinned at that. "I could run 'em through, Captain Sakis"

"Hmmm, tempting. But I must confess a certain curiosity. What brings you to the _Midnight Shadow_ hmm? Any more of you running around?" He checked the other barrels.

"No! And we can explain," Clara ran a few scenarios through her head, preferably ones that didn't end in them walking the plank.

The captain crossed his arms. "This should be good. Do go on."

"We … we had a bit too much to drink back at Anchorage, and for a bet we both climbed in that barrel, and when we woke up …"

The captain yawned. "You'll have to do better than that. Two! How sharp are those horns?"

"Okay. Alright. We want to join your crew. I've always wanted to …" Clara dried up under the captain's withering gaze. "It was my childhood dream," she finished, rather limply, "to be a pirate. I have a hat and everything."

"No free rides here. I've got a full crew. We're on our way to the Venflaxian Cluster to, well, do a little business. What do you have that could possibly interest me?" His voice was filled with barely suppressed amusement, which did nothing to soothe Clara's nerves.

"Really. The Venflaxian cluster? You're not going to Skull Moon?" she said.

"And what, my pet, is at Skull Moon?"

Clara and Ashildr exchanged glances. Then Clara shrugged. They _had_ to get to Skull Moon, and if giving this brigand information on the _Farraguette_ got them there … But then, they'd be _causing_ the robbery, instead of just taking advantage of it. It made her head spin.

"Stronite. Tonnes of the stuff. In the hold of the factory ship _Farraguette,"_ Ashildr said without pause.

Clara spluttered.

The captain made a disdainful 'pft'. "Those factory ships are impenetrable." Then he came right up close to Clara, staring in her in the eye. A shiver ran down her spine. There was something horribly familiar about this captain.

He clapped his hands together. "Of course! You have someone on the inside."

"Why would you say that?" Clara exclaimed.

The captain grinned. "Eighth sense, pet. Now this friend of yours, he can let us in?"

Clara balked. This wasn't the plan. "No. We didn't come here to commit a crime."

" _You_ came to take advantage of a robbery you thought was already happening. How wonderfully ironic," the captain said. His tone darkened a shade. "You can sit on your high morals if you like. There's quite a good view from the end of the plank."

Clara glanced at Ashildr. At this point, there didn't seem to be much choice.

#

Aboard the _Farraguette,_ the Doctor pulled the psychic paper out of his pocket. "Change of plan," he said, glancing at Drellmar. We have to let the pirates in."

"That isn't what we agreed," Drellmar said.

"I know. But it looks like Clara and Ashildr are in trouble. We can't help them sitting here."

Drellmar nodded. "Then we do what we must to save those we care for."

The Doctor smiled at the pale-faced Portant. He wasn't susceptible to the waves of doubt and unease that drifted from her people, tainting their friendships, keeping them aloof and apart. She had a kind heart, and in a hard universe, that was everything.

"The _Moonlight Shadow_ will intercept the _Farraguette_ in three hours. We have that long to get the main shields down, some stronite aboard an escape pod, and prepare to launch."

Drellmar frowned at the computer terminal. "That inspection last week deliberately misreported the stronite levels the workers are exposed to. Look, I recovered this." She pointed at a graph, with a red line representing toxicity, dipping in and out of safe exposure levels in several key areas. "Levels six and seven seem the worst affected."

The Doctor called up the ship's blueprints, downloading them into the sonic glasses for later use. While he did, he checked out levels six and seven.

What he found boiled his blood. "Levels six and seven are living quarters. Factory hands, kitchen staff, and cleaners. The officers and technical crew are safely on levels eight and above, of course." He checked the personnel manifest. "The only crew who stayed on the ship for longer than six months were the officers and tech support."

"All those workers we saw, every last one had their life-auras end abruptly," Drellmar said.

The Doctor clamped his jaw. He had a job to do, but there was time to send a quick message to a subdivision of the Shadow Proclamation. He had a feeling the Fatality Index Department would be very interested in what had been going on aboard the _Farraguette_.

#

"Almost ready?" the Doctor called to Drellmar, as they separated a flask of stronite from a large barrel. "As soon as the shields are down and the pirates are aboard, you get to the pod and get it prepped. Here, take the sonic glasses. The clearance codes are pre-loaded. The programme should block the null field long enough to get us out of harm's way. Point and think."

"Ah, _Inspector_ ," a voice came from behind. "We detected an irregular transmission. And do you know, the funniest thing happened. When I checked with my contact at Toxicity Regulation, no inspectors were sent here today."

The Doctor whipped around, putting his body between Chief Cole and Drellmar. With luck, Drellmar had the good sense to vanish.

Cole flashed white teeth in an unnerving grimace, aiming a blaster directly at his chest.

The Doctor ignored the gun. "I expect your contact at Toxicity Regulation was the same person who doctored your stronite contamination records?"

"That's none of your business. Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor. And you _made_ it my business when you started slaughtering hundreds of workers every year. How do you do it? Open levels six and seven to the vacuum of space every six months?"

"They're nobodies," Cole said, with a dismissive air. "Unqualified, homeless, imperfect. They're glad to have a job, shelter, and food for a few months. It's more civilised than you think."

Bile rose in the Doctor's throat. "The mark of _civilisation_ is the way a privileged citizen treats the most vulnerable members of society when they think no one else is looking."

Cole let out a 'pft' as if she'd rehearsed this argument before. "We didn't always do this, you know. We spent credit after credit healing people and sending them back. Do you know what happened? Half of them went straight back to their old ways. A few were dead within weeks anyway. They're better off this way."

"That's not for you to decide!" the Doctor roared. "Their lives, their choices! And what about the half who _didn't_ go back to their old lifestyles?"

As he spoke, the Doctor flicked his sonic screwdriver in his pocket. The ship quivered almost imperceptibly around them.

Cole, clearly more attuned to her ship than her fellow Lexihorns, frowned. She rammed her blaster to the Doctor's chest. "What have you done?"

The Doctor smirked. "I don't like the look of the power fluctuations in your energy shields. Anyone could get past. If, say for example, there were pirates around, I'd be quite worried right now if I were you."

"Pirates?" Cole darkened a shade. "You bastard."

The Doctor flinched a little at the language, although frankly it was surprising more people didn't call him that, given his propensity for mucking up their plans.

Cole took a step backwards, her gun still aimed at the Doctor.

"I'd get down to engineering if I were you," he said.

"I should shoot you here and now."

"Good luck explaining _that_ to my friends at the Shadow Proclamation when they turn up. I think your death toll has to be up in the millions before they _actually_ execute you these days, but I'm sure they'll make an exception if they find one of their own dead." Not strictly true, but it had the desired effect. Cole lowered her gun, turned, and sprinted for the engine room.

#

Captain Sakis rubbed his hands together, while the pirate hoard, the oddest collection of ruffians Clara had ever seen, cleaned cutlasses and sharpened rapiers.

Clara and Ashildr, both tied with their hands behind their backs against the main mast, tugged at their bonds.

The ship drifted through space. At the ship's wheel, a blue-faced pilot used two of her four arms to bring the ship about, and the other pair to clean her sword. Beyond the mast, Skull Moon hung low on the horizon, a huge yellow orb in the blackness.

Suddenly, the _Farraguette_ appeared at their side, the ancient rust-red ship, easily three times their length and much wider, surfacing like a leviathan from the depths of the ocean.

"Right, lads!" Sakis jumped up four steps, sword in hand. "The shields are down. There's enough pure stronite on that ship to keep your mothers in pearls for the rest of their lives, and yourselves swimming in octarian brandy. Ours for the taking!"

The pirates roared their approval.

"Ready to slice her open?" the captain roared.

A pirate raised a large blow torch. "Aye, captain!"

The pirates cheered.

"I think I've lost it," Clara mumbled. "First dragons, now this."

"I'm afraid it's all too real," Ashildr said. "Can you get a message to Drellmar and the Doctor?"

Before Clara could respond, the captain leaped down the steps, and stood facing them. "Well. Thanks for the tip. Is he coming?"

"Who?"

"Your friend. The one who just let my little pirates go play on the _Farraguette._ I'd like to thank him in person."

"Why?" Clara demanded, an uneasy tension rising in her chest.

"Oh, I just like the idea of him. I think we could be friends."

Clara stared hard at the captain. Something shimmered around him, like a glitch in a hologram. "He's not coming," Clara said, a protective urge gripping her. "Whatever you want with him is _not_ happening—"

Sakis sighed. "Looks like we'll have to make you walk the plank after all." He waved at one of the remaining pirates, a Tellurian man with a grey, rodent-like face. "Ratty, set the plank!"

Ratty scurried away, and soon a plank dangled beyond the deck and out into the darkness of space.

"Bring her!" Sakis called. Ratty gripped Ashildr's arms, pulling at the rope. "No, not that one! The other one." A sly smile spread over the captain's face. "She's his favourite."

Clara stared at Sakis. "Who _are_ you?"

"I think you better send your friend a little love letter." Sakis delved into Clara's pocket. "Ah. Psychic paper. I presume he has one too? Maybe I should send it instead."

"It won't work for you."

"Of course it will. It's like texting without the bothersome phone."

#

On the _Farraguette,_ the Doctor examined the psychic paper with dread in his chest. This was _bad._ He glanced back at the direction of the escape pod. Pitched battles between pirates and the Lexihorne crew were everywhere, blocking off his route to the pod. It was too chancy. He had to get to Clara quickly and hope Drellmar did her part. Nothing for it but to run.

As he stepped through the hole the _Shadow's_ crew had cut in the _Farragutte's_ side, a familiar tingle ran through his chest. As soon as his foot hit the _Moonlight Shadow's_ deck he groaned aloud. He'd know it anywhere. The _Shadow_ was a TARDIS in static mode. Someone had used a chameleon circuit to create a space-ready sailing ship. None of the usual functions of a TARDIS would operate while they were in Skull Moon's null field. But that didn't matter. All it needed to do was sail. And raid, apparently. His brain spooled through a few guesses as to who it might be. Eutanoyer? Had he sent Clara into a deadly trap?

He sprinted through the lower levels and burst onto the deck.

Clara stood on the middle of a plank, with a sword to her back, a Tellurian poking her every time she paused.

"Oi!" the Doctor yelled, indignantly. "What—"

A short man stood rubbing his hands together, smiling gleefully.

The Doctor groaned.

"Well isn't this delightful!" the pirate captain said.

The Doctor marched right up to the captain. "You can switch the perception filter off. That's never worked on me, and you know it."

"You're such a spoilsport."

The Doctor growled in his throat. "We don't have time for this."

The captain reached up and twisted a pin in his hat. "Oh well. If you say so."

The captain's form shimmered. The pirate's garb disappeared. In front of him was the long flowing dress he'd seen her wearing last.

Missy.

Clara gasped.

"You're just in time to see your pet walk the plank. Just remind me, how long do humans last in the vacuum of space?"

The Doctor stared at Missy. "When did we last meet?"

"Skaro." Missy narrowed her eyes. "When was the last time for you?"

The Doctor ignored her question. At least Missy hadn't broken her word and left the TARDIS.

Missy shrugged. "Fine. Ratty, send her on her way."

The Doctor leapt onto the plank between Clara and Ratty. "Think about this, Missy. Is this really what you want?"

Missy brought her finger thoughtfully to her chin. "Hmmm … Yes."

"Aren't you tired of all this? Don't you ever stop to think about what it would be like if we were really friends again? Because I do."

"Well that's what I've been saying, silly. Stop picking off the vegetarian menu, because I have a lovely steak waiting for you. Come join me. We could do anything."

"You know I'll never do that."

"It's always the same with you. Your way or no way. So selfish."

Clara turned on the plank, and wobbled. The Doctor steadied her, taking her hand.

"Give her up, Doctor. She holds you back." Missy said, sounding as earnest as she ever had.

He shook his head. "If there's one thing I'll never give up, it's her."

He glanced down, calculations running through his head, weighing the options. He heard, faintly, the hum of a craft approaching.

He took Clara's hand for a moment. "You trust me, don't you, Clara, Ashildr?"

Clara nodded, gripping his hand briefly.

Ashildr grumbled, "Do I have a choice?"

"Fifteen seconds!" he yelled to Ashildr.

"Together," he said to Clara. They jumped, into the blackness, plummeting through the void, until the jolt of a ship's gravity beam caught them. They tumbled inside.

"Where's Ashildr?" Drellmar yelled.

"Ten seconds behind us!" the Doctor said.

Drellmar swooped the small ship up, searching for Ashildr. "Where is she?"

The Doctor's fingers flew over the controls, his face still flushed from the fall. Then he saw her, spinning through space, dangerously close to the edge of the air pocket surrounding the _Shadow._

"There!" Drellmar dived the pod, full thrust. Ashildr's hair brushed the shimmering barrier, as the tiny pod scooped her up.

#

As they left, Drellmar made a low pass over the _Shadow's_ deck. A huge spaceship dwarfed both the _Shadow_ and the _Farraguette_. So, his message to the Fatality Index had got through after all. A row of prisoners, including Astrider Cole and Missy, were handcuffed on the deck.

"Who's that?" Clara asked the Doctor, pointing at a dark-skinned man in grey robes standing beside Missy.

"That's Missy's past catching up with her."

Drellmar flicked off the viewscreen, as if looking at the aura around Missy was physically painful. "The Fatality Index will surely sentence her to death."

"Yes, they did."

"But you said she was in your TARDIS—" Clara started.

"Yes, she is. I always wondered who turned her in. Never imagined it was me." The Doctor sighed. "That's the trouble with time travel. Things don't always happen in the right order."

"At least we got the stronite. We can make the wotsit buffer now."

"The degradation buffer. Yes. I can start constructing it. But we need to have a little chat about how we get it fully operational."

Clara sighed. "Nothing's ever straightforward, is it?"

#

Later, in the Diner, when they had stored the stronite safely, eaten, and retired for the night, Clara lay on her bed staring at the ceiling.

"So why does everything have to be so difficult?" She was aware her voice must sound close to a whine, but really, this whole situation was getting to her, and it must be getting to him. He usually had less patience than she did. "You must be sorry you fell for me," she said, unable to stop feeling a little sorry for herself.

The Doctor sat down on the bed beside her. "I didn't fall for you," he said softly. "You raised me. From where I began, a spiky, closed-off idiot, fumbling his way out of the ashes of Trenzalore, trying to be a good man again and not sure how." He looked down at her with an intensity that made her shudder. "You were the light that lifted me. I'll never be sorry, not for a single moment, for loving you."

She reached her hand towards him, and then faltered, letting her fingers fall back to her chest by her necklace. She took the darkstar fragment in her fingers, still wrapped in the protective covering shielding it from the Quantum Shade.

"We should start building the buffer straight away," she said.

"Agreed. But we have to be careful. We're going to have to get some highly specialised components. That might alert Eutenoyar to what we are doing. And we can't just build it in regular space-time, either."

"No? Where will we build it, then?"

The Doctor's face twitched. "We are going to have to go to the Dark Cell."

"That doesn't sound good."

"No. It's a place where dreams and reality merge. The dark places of all our minds will be exposed. I'm seriously considering whether I should go on my own—" he held up a hand when she started to speak, -but I know you won't be having any of that." His steel-grey eyes looked at her earnestly. "I know we've shared a mind-space, already for, well, intimate reasons. But this is different. There are layers of the psyche that no one chooses to share, for good reasons. We'll need to train ourselves in separating our bodies and minds."

"Well I won't object to a little more mindsex," Clara muttered.

His eyes were drawn to her chest, that top button flapping tantalisingly open on her pyjama top. He couldn't suppress a grin. "Neither would I."


	15. Chapter 15: We have Time

As Clara stretched back on her bed, the Doctor hovered uncertainly beside her. "Are you going to lay down?" she asked, glancing up from her copy of Jane Eyre.

He nodded, but still procrastinated for reasons she couldn't quite fathom. They had been sharing a bedroom for weeks now, and although they still couldn't touch one another, after a few awkward moments they had gotten pretty relaxed in each other's presence.

He stood beside her, and a glance at the bulge in his pyjama trousers went a long way to explaining his discomfort. Her long bubble bath and wandering half-naked around the room probably hadn't helped his predicament. They had agreed to practice their mind control techniques, although if she was honest Clara had been procrastinating too, with her nose in this book, as she was keen and nervous in equal measure. The whole process was undeniably _erotic_ , and the last time they did it whipped her up into quite an aroused state. She really wasn't sure how she felt about it all.

Eventually he did lay down beside her. "Just relax," he whispered in her ear. "This won't hurt you."

"I'm not worried about pain. But..." she sighed, unable to express her trepidation at losing control. "Never mind. Let's get on with it."

He nodded gently and looked into her eyes.

 _His mind brushes hers._

 _Warm. He warms her. He's powerful yet very gentle, and she remembers how good this feels from last time. She makes a small sounds and he chuckles inside her mind._

" _You like that?" he asks._

 _A rush of chemicals scatters through her. "Yes," she breathes, heat filling her body. Like he taught her, she extends herself into him, and is rewarded with the sound of him groaning._

 _Her rawness presses into his soft places. She doesn't pull away like he expects her to. There is no uncertainty in her now, just acceptance and love._

" _If we are going to survive the Dark Cell," he explains "we have to maintain this link at all times. The psychic chaos will try to tear us apart. It will project all sorts of things. Our worst nightmares. We'll have to stay strong, together."_

" _Sounds pretty bad."_

" _I'm not going to lie to you. It will push us to our limits. But we can prepare ourselves. Visualise yourself as you are right now. Get connected to how your body feels. Can you do that?"_

" _Yes. I feel… Well, it's a bit hard to say."_

" _Perhaps you could show me?"_

" _How?"_

 _He pulls back from her a little, so he can see her lying prone, looking for all the world as if she is asleep on the bed._

" _Clara, Just imagine yourself sitting up."_

" _How? Oh!"_

 _He closes his eyes again, and they are sitting up, together on the bed. He reaches out for her, and touches her face. She draws back in alarm._

" _It's alright. This won't bring the Quantum Shade. We're separate from our corporeal forms."_

" _We are? How? No, wrong question." She covers his hand, which is pressed gently to her face, with her own. "I don't care how." She leans in to kiss him. "I can feel you. Here with my body, but in my mind too. Are you sure it's safe?"_

" _Quite sure. It's called embodiment. It's a form of therapy for post-regenerative dissociation disorder. But it can also be used for other reasons. There's an old story," he went on, "that if you generate enough power at the right moment, you could re-embody a whole personality. Preserve life after regeneration. Live on. Have another lap. But I don't think anyone ever succeeded in doing it. Anyway, we need to function this way while we are in the Dark Cell. Our real bodies wouldn't survive. We'll project ourselves in like this an d Drellmar and Ashildr will monitor our sleeping bodies closely."_

" _Okay, so are there any limits to what we could do, theoretically, while we're like this?" Clara pulls him closer for a deeper kiss, and he feels arousal surging through him, just as if they were really touching. He kisses her back._

" _We can do anything we would do with our bodies. More perhaps, if we learn to control the psychic energy," he projects this with his mind, even as his fingers work to loosen the buttons on her night shirt._

" _Then I think we should practice quite a lot," she says._

" _No argument from me." He kisses her again, and smiles. "We have plenty of time."_

#

Drellmar and Ashildr walked hand in hand through the botanical gardens deep within the TARDIS.

"Your ship never ceases to amaze me," Drellmar said, lightly running her hand over the waxy leaves of the forest plants as she passed.

"I'll admit, the Diner can be unreliable at times. But it's home." Ashildr paused before taking the plunge. She'd been thinking about this for a while, and when it came to it, she just rushed the words out, her heart racing beneath her cool exterior. "It could be your home too. If you wanted it to be."

Drellmar jerked her head around, her pale eyes wide with surprise.

Ashildr felt a rush of anxiety. Perhaps she was pushing too far, too fast. She looked down at their joined hands. Perhaps _this_ meant less to Drellmar than she thought. Her throat became tight. She'd promised herself she wouldn't do this again. Make herself vulnerable. Drellmar was still staring at her.

"I'm sorry," Ashildr said, wishing she could take it back. She'd managed perfectly well through eternity, relying on herself. "It's silly. Ignore me. I don't expect you to…"

"I…I wonder how Clara would feel about that?" Drellmar said.

" _Clara_ moved the Doctor in here without asking _me_ ," Ashildr pointed out, her hopes rising.

Drellmar smiled a distant, sad smile. "It's been many years since I stayed anywhere long enough to call it home."

"Then perhaps you should try it," Ashildr said, halting them in their tracks. "Perhaps we should try this _together_." She realised she was holding her breath. She didn't know exactly what it was about Drellmar she found so captivating. Her quiet strength. Her gentle kindness. Her powerful but understated nature. But Ashildr knew one thing for certain: she didn't want to be without her.

Drellmar's cool eyes met hers, and then she smiled. "That would please me very much," she said.

Ashildr let her breath out in a rush. She tried to keep cool, maintain her reserve. "It would please me too," she said quietly. They continued their walk through the gardens, and Ashildr felt, for the first time in a good long while, that the universe was finally giving something good back.

 **Gallifrey: The Scendeles Chapterhouse**

Primus Eutenoyar slithered through the dark of the abandoned Chapter House. He had always resented this place. Such a weak Chapter House from the start. The site of his humiliation. The Chapter had so little influence that as leader he never even got a statue in the Panopticon. But all that was changing now. His influence grew by the day. More and more Time Lords rallied to his cry. Since Rassilon left _someone_ had to show some backbone and create a sense of vision. And that someone was _him._

Primus pulled open an old cabinet and rustled through the ancient papers and scrolls, with text and symbols swirling and dancing across the page. He knew exactly what the Doctor was up to. He'd stolen the plans to make a degradation buffer from the Dark Vault on Gallifrey. But if he thought he'd keep the Shade at bay that way, he was mistaken. He might have the stronite he needed after his adventure at Skull Moon, but he still needed to assemble the device. And there was only one place he could do that. Primus smiled. The Dark Cell was _his_ domain. He'd existed there for centuries, in the shadows with the wraiths and the darklings. Now _he_ was the prime force. The First, the gathering darkness, the Master of the Shade. Soon, he would have all the power he needed to take control of the High Council, and from there assert his influence across the whole of space and time.

Primus read the prophecy again, although he knew it by heart. At the time of the _Aurum Synthenea_ the Hybrid will seal the door between dominions and banish the First, bringing light back into the darkness.

Primus folded the parchment under his arm, and swirled his cloak into the darkness. It glittered and shone like stars captured in silk.

If the Doctor thought he could save Clara Oswald from the Shade, then he was sadly mistaken. And without Clara, the Doctor was just another Time Lord. The hybrid would _never_ come to pass. The First's star was ascendant. Nothing would stop him. No one knew the power of the Dark Cell better than he did.


	16. Chapter 16

"I think this sounds remarkably dangerous. Isn't there another way?" Ashildr said. The unflappable immortal's tone was haughty, but her eyes, darting back and forth between the Doctor and Clara, betrayed worry. They were huddled together in the medical bay, the white walls and sterile beds a far cry from where the Doctor and Clara would soon be going: the Dark Cell.

The Doctor had to concede venturing into the Dark Cell _was_ dangerous. "I wish there was another way," he said. "But to contain the stronite we have to assemble degradation buffer in the Dark Cell." If there was another way, he'd take it. But he'd been over and over this in his head, and nothing else would work.

"How does the Dark Cell make it safer?" Drellmar's pale blue eyes flitted over the banks of medical monitors. She and Ashildr would monitor the Doctor and Clara's physical bodies, while they psychically projected themselves into the Cell.

"The null particles in Dark Cell hold the paradoxical effects of the stronite at bay. Then the buffer cancels out the interference that's been making the chronolock fail." The Doctor had another plan, too, one that had wormed its way into the back of his mind like a slow creeping vine. In fact, he'd been unable to think of much else, worrying away at the problem until a solution formed in his mind. He couldn't know for sure if it would work until he assembled the device, and he didn't want to raise Clara's hopes. But maybe, just maybe, they could deal with the curse of the Quantum Shade for good.

"Once we've built the device, we'll have to get out fast," the Doctor went on. "The longer we stay, even as psychic projections, the more energy will bleed back through the proto-neural connection and into our physical bodies."

"But you won't _actually_ be there. We'll be overseeing your bodies in stasis." Drellmar said, frowning.

"Yes. The whole place is swamped with null particles. We'd never get out again if we just walked in." Ashildr and Drellmar wore worried faces. Not Clara, he noted, with a flush of pride, but Drellmar and Ashildr clearly needed a bit more convincing. "It's perfectly fine," he went on. "Staff disembody and psychically project into the Cell to attend the, ah, occupants, when need arises."

"You do realise he just used a whole load of words that actually mean nothing," Ashildr observed, turning to Clara with an air of disbelief.

Clara squeezed her friend's hand. "I know. But I trust him. Will you help?"

Ashildr glanced at Drellmar before she answered. "We've talked this through, and yes, we'll help." She narrowed her eyes. "But if you two die in there, I _will_ kill you."

The Doctor grinned. "That's the spirit!" From his pocket, he pulled out two rectangular patches of plasti-cloth, each about the length of credit card, but a third of the width, with five small green squares running from bottom to top. "While these stay green, there's no need to worry."

"And when _do_ we start to worry?" Ashildr turned the patches over in her hand, the reassuring green squares signalling all was currently well.

"If they turn amber, and then red." The Doctor stuck one of the patches to his jacket, and then slipped one to Clara. She pressed it onto her black leather jacket. "If three or more of these go red, chances are I'll be catapulted into a regeneration. Clara, you'll last a bit longer, but if that happens leave me and get out fast…"

Clara made a strangled half-laugh, entirely devoid of humour. "Like _that's_ going to happen."

"Don't look at me like that," the Doctor said. "I'm serious." He could see her point. If the roles were reversed he would never leave _her_.

"So am I. Although, it's nice I'm not the delicate one for a change." Clara flashed him a grin, obviously satisfied with this small role reversal.

The Doctor huffed, and chest tightened. Clara wasn't taking this anywhere near seriously enough, which was just like her. Brave but reckless. This was the reason he loved her, and the reason he lost her. These last weeks, the missing piece had slipped back in place, healing the void in his soul. He wouldn't lose her again, he _couldn't._

"Well," he said, "we'll make sure it all stays green, then." Despite the Doctor's bravado, a cold nub of fear crystallised in his belly, curling around a memory of long ago, a time he'd tried very hard to forget. He'd ventured into the Dark Cell only once. In the early days of the Time War he'd rounded up renegades he'd considered responsible for genocide on a distant world. He'd always meant to go back and see them properly dealt with, but in the middle of an endless war, the moment never came. And after that, well, there was nothing to go back _to_. His brief time in the Cell had been enough to give him nightmares. But so many things gave him nightmares in those days, it was impossible to keep track.

Meanwhile, Clara flashed Ashildr an encouraging smile and hopped onto the medical bed. She briefly held the necklace between her thumb and forefinger. Its dark energy crackled under the protective wrapping Clara had swathed it in, bathing her fingers in a blue glow.

"We thought this necklace would be the answer," she said, twisting the necklace over between her fingers. "But it was a trap all along."

The darkstar fragments in the necklace were loaded with potential energy, and even he didn't know the extent of what it could do. It had opened the door to the Quantum Shade if they so much as touched one another, tortuously, cruelly keeping them apart. Well, no more. He had the tools now, and he was going to end this. If the First, Eutenoyar, _was_ behind it all, then he'd gone too far.

"The thing about traps is, they tell you a bit about the maker. And this one thinks he's clever. Too clever." The Doctor lay down on the medical bed next to Clara's, close enough that they could touch. At the right moment, Drellmar would link their hands for them. He turned to look at her, met her brown eyes, glimmering with hope. "Nothing will keep us apart, Clara," he promised quietly.

Drellmar attached a set of nano electrodes to Clara's temples, and the same to his own.

Ashildr watched them, arms folded, still cautious and looking more than a little sceptical. "How do we know the moment to link your hands? If we do it too soon, you'll bring the Quantum Shade _here._ Game over."

"I'll raise my heart beats. You'll see a spike on the monitor." The Doctor closed his eyes, and sent an experimental burst of adrenaline into his bloodstream. Seconds later, the heart rate monitor flashed and beeped rapidly.

"Alright," Drellmar said. "We'll monitor you remotely through the tether link. But if you get in trouble in there, we won't be able to help. From what I've read about the Dark Cell, the only way to leave is for you to manifest a psychic door and go through it."

"Don't worry," Clara said. "Really, we've practiced this a lot. I know how to create a psychic door and open it."

Ashildr sniffed. " _That's_ why you've hardly been out of the bedroom all week!"

If Clara's time-locked state allowed her to blush, the Doctor was sure that she would have turned an attractive shade of scarlet right then. She avoided his eye. He almost blushed himself at the memory of those nights roaming around Clara's mind, freely able to touch in the embodied state, losing themselves in each other.

"It was training!" he exclaimed, although he didn't think he fooled anyone.

Ashildr laughed and shot a glance in his direction. "Of course it was." Her expression softened as she busied herself adjusting the electrodes on his temples. "Look, please, just be careful. Both of you."

"Careful is my middle name," he said. There was a moment of cool silence, before everyone in the room, including himself, erupted with laughter.

#

 **Inside the Cell**

"Doctor?" Clara called. His name sounded hollow. The moment she opened her eyes, darkness encased her, and for a few seconds she wasn't sure that she'd opened them at all. She blinked experimentally, and her lids certainly fluttered, but the immutable blackness remained. She stretched out her arm ahead.

Nothing.

She turned on the spot, with her arms wide, spinning around, contacting nothing. The emptiness pressed close, separating her from everything, sounds, smells, touch. The best word she could think of to describe it was _absence._

The temperature was cooler than the Diner's medical bay, and she quickly wrapped her arms around herself to warm up, but for comfort, too. This whole place just felt _wrong._ Darkness coiled around her, seeping onto her skin, and covering her like a shroud. The whole place felt out of step with reality, disjointed from anything she'd experienced before. She stamped her foot three times, partly to assure herself she still had a foot, as she couldn't even see her own shoes. A hollow thump, thump, thump, resounded through the darkness. Solid ground. Seemed like a hard tiled floor. That was something at least.

"Doctor?" she called again, a little louder, but not loud enough to announce her presence to every dark thing lurking in the shadows, she hoped. The Dark Cell was a Time Lord prison; no one got sent here because their library books were overdue.

Behind her, something scurried and scratched its way across the floor. Tiny claws? She jumped around, but saw nothing in the thick darkness.

Clara clenched her fists and then loosened them, flicking her fingers several times to ground herself, to escape the creeping feeling of _otherness_ that seeped into her bones. The Doctor warned her about this. The Dark Cell played mind games.

In the corner of her eye, the blackness became a shade less intense. She took a hesitant step in that direction. The lightening in the distance continued, so Clara started in that direction, taking tentative steps, all the time straining to hear footsteps, or sounds of the Doctor's presence. She hadn't considered they might arrive separately. Where the hell was he?

Something brushed her arm. A blush of wind, delicate as an angel's breath, and then it was gone. "Okay, that was weird," she said aloud. Her voice echoed and re-echoed, tumbling back to her ears until she wanted to clap her hands over them to shut it out.

A rustling in the pitch blackness behind her. It was no good turning, she knew she'd see nothing. Her skin tingled, the hairs on her arm prickling. She suppressed a shudder, and increased her pace towards the light. "Doctor?" she said again, fear turning her voice brittle, and the terrible echo sounded again.

Another rustling from behind quickened her into a half-run. No. She had to stay calm. Panicking would make things worse, as she had no idea where she was going, or even what was underfoot. She forced herself to walk.

A rush of air erupted from the floor a few feet ahead, where the floor fell away into a deep void. Specks of red light swirled around in a distant, hypnotic dance at the bottom of the, what? A pit, a tear in the fabric of the Dark Cell? A trap? She had no clue.

Suddenly, a tearing wind blew Clara's hair back. Thundering wings rushed upwards. Thousands of red-eyed bat-like creatures erupted from the depths, spiralling upwards towards some unseen roof, and then plunging down in a terrifying mass of clicking and screeching. Clara screamed and tried to run, but wings tangled her hair. As she flung her arms up to protect her eyes, sharp claws scratched her hands. Furry bodies smothered her face, wings in her mouth. She spat in revulsion and screamed again as the weight of the swarming creatures bore down on her, pressing her to the ground. She forced herself to her feet, flinging the clicking creatures away from her.

Clara sprinted towards the light, the screams of the bats smothering everything. She ran for what seemed an age, but as the light brightened, the bats retreated, and at last she was able to slow to a walk. It was much brighter when she heard a sniffing sound. Sitting crossed-legged on the floor ahead, was a small child.

Astonished, Clara bobbed down. Surely the Time Lords didn't send children to prison?

"Hello," Clara said gently. "Where's your Mummy?" The girl looked about three, maybe four. Her long brown hair was brushed and glossy over her shoulders. She had the biggest brown eyes Clara had ever seen, beside in the mirror. An uneasy feeling churned Clara's stomach. The girl looked up at her silently.

"How about your Daddy. Is he here?" Clara went on, her voice high with tension. She glanced around, but although it was lighter here, Clara still couldn't see much more than the dark floor the child sat on. The little girl shook her head.

"What's your name?" Clara asked.

"I don't have a name," the child whispered. "Because I'll never be born."

"What do you mean..." The words died in Clara's throat. The brown hair, the dark eyes. Looking at this child was like looking in a mirror. "Who are you?" Clara whispered, although she was afraid she knew the answer.

"The child you'll never have. I'm what you gave up when you ran away with _him_."

Clara clutched her chest. She'd always thought she'd have children one day. She never _stopped_ thinking she would, not until the day she fell on the Trap Street, and after that, well, everything changed, didn't it? She'd told herself to be grateful she was still around, not waste time grieving over what could never be. The child's mournful eyes burned into Clara's soul, left her with an ache deep in her chest. No wonder the Doctor couldn't stand it when she looked sad, if this was what it was like to be on the receiving end.

The little girl raised her hand. "Mummy," she whimpered, clutching Clara's hand. The girl's skin was soft and real as anything Clara had ever felt. A primal desire to scoop her up, to protect and take her away from this place swamped Clara. The child was warm, her eyes bright, her smile haunting. They could find a place together, somewhere safe, all three of them, couldn't they? Be a family. Clara reached out a trembling hand to the child's chestnut hair.

"Come with me, Mummy." The girl clasped Clara's hand, and jumped to her feet. "Let's go!"

Clara blinked, and she was _elsewhere,_ watching a scene play out, watching _herself._

Clara, stood by the window in her small flat, checking a text on her phone.

"Just left work, be home in half an hour. Will pick up bread on the way. Love you."

Clara thumbed a reply. "Okay, see you then xx"

Clara wove across a floor littered with toys and books. She bobbed down, a delicate procedure because of the huge bump of swollen tummy, and sat on the floor next to the brown haired girl.

"Daddy will be home soon. Shall we pack these things up before dinner?"

"One more story first?" the little girl said. She grinned an impish grin, and handed Clara a book, as if this was an old game, and one she knew she would win. "Please Mummy?"

Clara paused. Her head hurt. Something pounded in her temple, desperate and hopeless and clawing. A child. _My Child_. So achingly vivid. But not real. How could she be?

Then Clara was no longer watching the scene, but sitting on the floor beside the girl. She put her hand on her tummy, and felt a rumbling kick. She cried out in shock.

The brown haired girl stood up and wrapped her small arms around Clara's neck. "We love you. We _need_ you. Stay with us."

The girl's breath was hot on her cheek, and her hands were so soft. Innocent. The world hadn't touched her yet. Could she really stay here, and have this?

"I can't," Clara whispered at last, the ache of the family she'd never have, the mother she would never be, heavy in her chest.

The girl's features blurred. She sniffed. "Please, Mummy. I don't want to go back into the darkness all alone."

"I'm sorry. You're a dream. A wish. Something. I don't know." It was like sandpaper, rubbing away at the hard shell she'd build around that part of her, scraping away at her stroke by stroke. Clara clutched her head.

The child's face began to melt in front of her. Clara stood up rapidly. Tears pricked behind her eyes. She backed away as the little girl trickled away like hot wax. Clara tried to turn her face away, but she couldn't, so she watched as the girl dissolved. _My child. A trick. It's a trick._ She forced her feet to move, and ran blindly, gasping, her hearts raw and aching.

Something solid grabbed her. She screamed, pulling back, but the grip was firm.

"Clara!" The arms around her were the Doctor's.

She clung to him with a bitter sob.

"Clara, what happened?" His voice was urgent, full of concern.

"Is she still there?" Clara looked around, suddenly desperate for a last glimpse of the brown haired girl. But of that little piece of her heart, there was no sign. Her hand flew to her belly. It was flat. No flutter of life. How could there be? With a bitter tightness, she choked back a sob.

"Who?" the Doctor asked, looking around.

"She was. Oh." Clara buried her face in the Doctor's chest. A child. _Her_ child, the daughter she would never have. "I…" Her words washed away. How could she possibly explain what she'd seen without hurting him too? So she let herself rest in the comfort of his arms, her face buried close to his chest, inhaling the otherness of him, letting that wash over her instead. "It's alright," she said after a few moments. "I'm okay."

"You sure?"

"Yes," she said firmly. She might never have a child, but she'd gained much more than she'd lost, she told herself firmly. She had seen sights people only dream of. Done things beyond her wildest imaginings. If she had regrets, she would not let them consume her. If she told herself that enough times, she might start to believe it.

The Doctor looked at her with those faded blue eyes full of concern. Now that she could hold him without fear of setting off the Quantum Shade, it was rather a nice feeling, she decided, wiping the tears from her own cheeks.

"How long have we been here?" Clara rubbed her hands over his arms, and then gripped his hand tight, determined to keep hold of him, now that she'd found him.

"Hard to tell. I'd been walking for a while when I heard you cry out."

This area of the Cell was shrouded in an eerie green half-light, and Clara tried to orient herself. "Okay. We need to get to this Null Chamber, right? So we can assemble the buffer. Which way?"

The Doctor carried a bag slung over his back, full of the instruments and equipment they needed to construct the degradation buffer. Clara had wrapped the stronite in a special film to stop any decay or leakage, and put it carefully in her pocket, to separate it from the more active components in the Doctor's pack.

The Doctor swept the light from the sonic screwdriver back and forth ahead of them. "This way." He took off with long strides, and Clara had to half run to keep up.

Then he froze.

Clara tugged his hand. "Doctor?" His eyes were glassy, staring. Clara waved a hand in front of his face. No response. "Doctor!" As she pulled at his jacket, her fingers brushed the green safety patch. The bottom square had turned orange. She looked down at her own. It too had started to change. "That can't be good." She yanked at the Doctor again. What was happening to him? His face was ashen, staring, his eyes blank, and nothing, not calling, or jolting him, was enough to stir him out of his trance.

#

The Doctor knew he was standing still, and he also knew, at the very edge of his awareness, that Clara was speaking. But the volume was so low, her voice so distant and grainy, that it hardly reached him.

A woman wearing a baseball cap and a frown stood in front of him. "I was such an idiot," she said, her voice laden with bitterness. "I was so impressed at finally meeting the great _Doctor_ , I forgot most of the people you bump into end up _dead_. Not _her_ of course." The woman nodded in Clara's direction. "Not the special ones, the pretty ones you decide to take off in that magic box of yours. The rest of us. _We_ don't matter as much as they do. And _we_ end up dead."

The words stabbed his hearts, a sharp relentless jab. "It's not like that!"

"Isn't it? Do you even remember my name?" The woman's words sliced towards him, sharp and bitter, and all the more painful for the truth in them.

"I do, of course I do." He fumbled for a name, a reminder, anything, to prove that he wasn't… what? He chose his own name. He was the Doctor, a healer, but he walked in the shadow of war and death. "I remember it perfectly well," he said, faltering. "Your name is…O'Donnell."

She sniffed, unimpressed. "You read that off my bleedin' cap. I mean my _actual_ name. You know, the one my Mum and Dad gave me. The one on the memorial on the wall at UNIT. On account of my unfortunate demise."

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment. His hearts felt physically heavy as he opened his eyes again. "I might not know your name. But I still see your face," he said quietly. "I remember. I remember you all."

The image of O'Donnell sneered. "Do you?" She jerked her head backwards, and behind her was a line of O'Donnells, snaking away into infinity, all wearing the same green cap and vest. More dead than he could ever count.

"It's Alice. My name was Alice."

"I save who I can," he said weakly. "And then I move on." Did it matter that if he and Clara hadn't gone to the Drum, the _whole_ crew would have died? But they did go, and Bennett, Lunn and Cass survived. He clutched his head, as a sharp stabbing throbbed the accusation through his temples. _He moved on. Except when he didn't._ He changed time to save Clara. He burned a billion of his own hearts to save her.

"I save who I can," he said again, his throat tight at the bitter lie of it.

In the long line, each Alice O'Donnell crumbled before his eyes, each mouth opening to an echoing scream.

"I save who I can!" he said again, louder now, trying to drown out the screams, trying to look away from the terrible line of failure and death. His knees buckled. He slapped his hands over his ears.

The screams wouldn't stop. Endlessly and forever, an echo of every life he abandoned, every child who slipped through the ice, every soul he didn't save. It hurt. He slammed his hands tighter over his ears. It _hurt._

"Doctor?" a soft voice, calm, like a mellow sunset on a hillside. Gentle hands covered his. "Doctor. It's alright."

He looked up at Clara, her eyes kind, full of forgiveness he didn't deserve.

"It's alright. It's not real. Whatever you saw, Doctor, it's not real."

"It might not be real, but that doesn't mean it isn't true," he whispered. He buried his face in her chest as she stood in front of him, her arms around him as he knelt helplessly on the floor. Her softness soothed him. Her scent, sweet, bright Clara, brought him back to himself. "My Clara," he muttered.

She kissed his forehead. "My Doctor," she breathed.

"I remember them all," he said softly.

"I know you do," she whispered, still holding him close. Perhaps she guessed what he'd seen. Perhaps she'd seen it too. Maybe she'd had her own psychic demons conjured up. Regardless, she knew what he needed. She guided him to his feet. "Let's get this done," she said, "together."

They pressed deeper into the Cell. The Doctor glanced at Clara's safety patch. Two squares had turned from green to orange. "When we get to the Null Chamber, we'll have to work fast," he said, with a grim awareness of time ticking by.

Clara nodded. She was by his side, and then she was gone. He peered into the gloom, the dark shadow panic hovering over him. "Clara?"

In the distance, the Doctor saw a figure. Clara, he was sure, slumped, but propped standing upright against something. He ran, his hearts pounding. This was a _trick_. Whatever he was seeing, he had to remember it was the nature of the Dark Cell to expose his psyche, dig out his worst fears and twist them. He told himself that, because what he _though_ t he saw was too terrible to be true.

As he got closer, disgusted fury rose in his chest like bile. Clara was tied to an obscene cross, her arms raised above head level, her ankles apart and tied to each leg of the cross. Her head slumped forward, her hair falling over her shoulders, her clothes ripped away in tattered strips, revealing huge swathes of skin. Her flesh was marked with angry welts. Her chest was brutally exposed, and the darkstar fragments on her necklace were no longer black, but glowing hot red against her bare skin.

The Doctor closed his eyes to shut the terrible image out. _It's a trick_ , his mind insisted, but his hearts were pounding. If this wasn't Clara, then where was she? When he opened his eyes, he held a cruel whip in his hand. He stared in horror at the marks on Clara's tender body, and threw the whip down with a guttural sound of disgust.

The woman on the St Andrew's cross looked up at him, smiling seductively, although the skin on her bare chest was reddened with painful welts. "I'm the boss," she said. "Everywhere but the bedroom."

"Alright, now I _know_ this isn't real," he snarled. "Where's my Clara?"

The Doctor focused on the image of Clara, using the full force of his telepathic abilities to shake the vile vision loose. Slowly the image pixelated, and in its place was a bemused looking Clara, fully dressed, free, unharmed.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she said.

"Are you… were you hurt? Tied up?"

"No. What did you see?"

"Never mind." The Doctor clasped hold of Clara's hand, steadying himself against the ravages that images left him with. He forced it from his mind, and took her hand. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked her.

Clara nodded, bemused, and seemed about to speak, just as a column of sheer blackness spilled from the floor. It twisted and came together like black fog, forming into the head of a giant bird. Its long hooked beak shining and sharp, its eyes soulless and staring. Its body wasn't avian, though. Its torso was a terrible, bearlike beast, all claws and fur and hate, with black wings sprouting bizarrely from its back. It towered over them, blocking out the dim light, and then tt plunged with a sickening screech. The Doctor jerked Clara aside. They ran, amid a squall of fur and claws, dodging and weaving through the darkness.

"There!" A door manifested ahead, and the Doctor realised Clara had made it, connecting them with another part of the Cell.

"Good thinking!" They pelted toward the door. The giant bird-beast flew above, skimming their heads, wings swooshing, claws reaching. He ducked, and Clara yelped, but they kept running. Clara grasped the door handle, yanking it back. The door didn't budge.

Hot air rushed the back of the Doctor's neck.

Clara closed her eyes, concentration etched onto her face. "Open."

The beast lunged.

The door opened, and they spilled through. Clara slammed it shut. The monster smashed into the door with a terrible screech.

The door splintered. The Doctor and Clara backed away.

"Focus, Clara. We need to give it something to fight."

"Yeah, okay, what?"

The bear-beast snarled its way through the splintered door, claws swiping at the wood, hungry eyes locked on Clara and the Doctor.

The Doctor's mind raced. They needed a clear image, something they could both project.

"A dragon? Like Egret!" Clara exclaimed.

It was perfect. He imagined the boy-dragon's shining scales, his jagged tail and angry claws. Clara too must have had the image in her mind, as the dragon manifested as before them, as vividly as he had been back in the cave.

"Go get him," Clara commanded, and with a triumphant flourish of her arm, she set the embodied dragon off, blasting fire at the screeching bird-beast.

The Doctor and Clara allowed themselves a quick satisfied grin, and then, as the titans clashed overhead, fur singeing, feathers fluttering down, the Doctor and Clara clasped hands and ran.

#

Back in the Diner, Ashildr cast a worried glance at Drellmar. The Doctor and Clara lay prone on the medical bed, their bodies deathly still. Ashildr had to touch Clara a few times, just to feel her warmth. At least the Doctor's shallow breathing told her he was still alive. But Clara was immobile, no rise and fall of her chest to link her to the living world. Ashildr squeezed her friend's hand, and hoped, _hoped_ she'd see her smile again.

One of the monitors positioned on a desk at the side of the medbay chirped. Ashildr frowned. That screen wasn't even connected to the medical equipment. She'd never once heard it activate.

Drellmar sat herself behind the desk, and stared at the screen for a few moments, before looking up at Ashildr, puzzled. "I think it's a message."

"What? We hardly ever get messages." One of the more satisfying things about living a sentient timeship, beside the almost-magic wardrobe, and the-never-unstocked kitchen, was that the Diner screened their calls. No junk mail. Neither Ashildr nor Clara were in the habit of giving _out_ their number.

Ashildr placed a hand on Drellmar's shoulder as the Gallifreyan symbols on the screen gave way to an incoming transmission.

A black woman, in the red uniform of a Gallifreyan soldier, appeared on the screen. Ashildr caught her breath. All this time, she and Clara, full of bravado, had pretended they were one step ahead of the the Time Lords, cleverly dodging Gallifrey's attention. But Ashildr had more than once wondered if they were in _fact_ being kept on a long leash, and one day, the Time Lords might decide to reel them in.

Well, they could _try._

If the General was surprised to see Ashildr with Drellmar, she didn't show it beyond a quick flick of her eyes at the Portant's ivory-white face.

"Am I speaking with Lady Me?" the General said, her voice much less arrogant than Ashildr expected, but still Ashildr flinched at the name. Her previous dealings with the Time Lords ended in blackmail and the Confession Dial. She had no desire to repeat that mistake.

"I am _Ashildr_. And you are?"

Something unexpected flashed in the General's eyes. What was that, shame?

"I regret your previous dealings with my people were not conducted respectfully. Rassilion acted without the approval of the High Council, in that, as in so many things. We have left you alone since." Ashildr saw no duplicity in her eyes, but who could tell with the Time Lords? She glanced at Drellmar, whose judgements of character were often incisive. The Portant shrugged, signalling that she had no more clue of the General's intentions than Ashildr.

The woman on the monitor moved closer to the screen. "I am General T'Nia." The General's tone held thinly disguised weariness, as if under the armour, General T'Nia was deeply tired. "I need to speak with Clara Oswald and the Doctor."

"They're not here," Ashildr said, coolly, and it wasn't even a lie, as their prone bodies were incapable of communication of any kind.

The General inclined her head. "You have no reason to trust me. I understand that. But I believe they are in great danger."

Ashildr scoffed. "Tell us something we don't know. Those two are always in danger."

The General glanced over her shoulder, and then continued. "You were on Gallifrey recently. In the Cloisters, no less. What did you discover?"

"Why do you need me to tell you? Go down there yourself," Ashildr batted back.

"Alright. We know about the second prophecy," said the General. " _At the time of Aurum Synthenea, the hybrid will seal the door between dominions and banish the First._ "

Ashildr held her face impassive.

"Does the Doctor know who this First is?" the General asked.

Drellmar squeezed Ashildr's hand. Perhaps Drellmar had decided to trust General T'Nia, just a little, as she addressed the soldier directly. "The Doctor believes the First is a Time Lord of the Scendeles Chapter, known as Primus Eutenoyar."

The General nodded. "As do I. Primus Eutenoyar has gained political ground here. He's proposed a fourfold increase in military expenditure. He's building…" the General's voice trailed away. "Frankly, I'm not exactly sure what he's building, but I have my suspicions." The General turned and spoke to someone off screen for a moment, before continuing. "A strong Gallifrey is a safe Gallifrey. Strike first, strike hard. That's his tagline."

"That should please you. More soldiers to play war games with," Ashildr snapped.

The General's nose wrinkled, her eyes hardened. "I saw what we did to the universe." Her tone was bitter, laced with disgust, and her eyes drifted away to a dark place for a moment before she snapped them back. "The Time Lords should be on their knees begging the universe for forgiveness, not gearing up to go again. And this time, it's not just the Daleks. Eutenoyar's ready to strike every race he deems a threat, and from what I've seen of his politics so far, that's everyone who is not like _him_."

"The Doctor said he was a minor figure," Ashild interjected.

"He started out as a bit of a joke. But he's gained the backing of some important families, especially those linked to the manufacture of arms and military technology."

Ashildr narrowed her eyes, trying to unravel the General's motives, and especially why she wanted the Doctor. "Are you planning a military coup? Is this what this is about?"

"What? No! Eutenoyar isn't president yet. I intend to make sure he never is." Her eyes held a hardness, a determination Ashildr recognised. The look of a woman prepared to do whatever was needed to save her people.

"It's imperative I talk with the Doctor and Clara Oswald," the General insisted.

Still, Ashildr's finger hovered over the button that would cut the transmission. The General might look sincere, but Ashildr hadn't survived this long on blind trust.

Drellmar, her attention caught by one of the medical monitors, moved away towards the beds. She ran her finger over the safety patches, first on Clara's then on the Doctor's chest. Ashildr couldn't see the colours from where she stood, but from the grave look Drellmar shot her, lips pressed tight together, she guessed it wasn't good.

"Well," Ashildr said to the General, keeping her tone neutral and dry. "We'll be sure to tell him when he gets back." Ashildr ended the transmission before T'Nia could reply, and hurried to Drellmar's side.

Two small red squares replaced the green on the Doctor's patch. His heart rate was raised, the line on the monitor beeping at an elevated rate.

"Is that the signal?" she asked Drellmar

"No, I don't think so. He's under stress in there, but the actual signal would be much more dramatic. A sudden spike."

Ashildr gently brushed a stray lock of Clara's hair. "I don't like the sound of whatever's happening on Gallifrey," she said quietly.

"No. And I don't fully trust General T'Nia, either. I believe she's partly telling the truth about Primus. But there's more to it."

"Agreed. If whatever he's building has Gallifrey's war leader worried, then I don't think the universe is a very safe place at all."

#

The part of the Dark Cell Clara and the Doctor reached next was not, in fact, dark. It was clinically white, and Clara had to squint against the brightness until her eyes adjusted. A long corridor stretched in front, and many doors were on either side. "Where are we?"

"I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor said. "Closer to the Null Chamber, I hope. That's what I was aiming for."

Clara paused a moment and watched him stride off down the corridor, in that way of his, as if he had every right to be there, as if the universe owed him entry to every place he wanted to go. And perhaps after 2000 years of righting wrongs, it did. He halted in front of a door. "Yes. We're in the right…" He paused and looked down at his safety patch.

Clara caught him up, and ran her fingertip up over the five squares. The green ones were smooth and cool to the touch, but the red ones, two on his, one on hers, had become rough and hot. "We better hurry."

This was it, Clara realised, with her hand on the door handle. The moment they had been planning for these past months. The chance to stop the Chronolock failing. To buy them time together.

Clara opened the door into the Null Chamber.

This room was even cooler than the dull air in the rest of the Cell, and Clara shivered as she stepped over the threshold. But it wasn't just the cold. The air tingled, prickling, making her skin jangle. Her body seemed to be brimming with unknowable energy. She wondered if the Doctor felt it too.

"It's the Null Field," the Doctor said. "It's dispersing the energy around your body, that's what makes the tingling." He began yanking components and tools out of the backpack, far too many to have ever fitted inside. Trans-dimensionally engineered luggage was a gift of the Time Lords, and one Clara had fallen in love with the minute she found the first handbag in the Diner's wardrobe.

"I've partially constructed this already," the Doctor said, picking up an intricate metal box with one side open. He examined the layout of circuits inside, and nodded, satisfied. "I had a bit of inspiration when I was doing it, and it looks like it might work. But it's risky. We knew the buffer would stop the First from weakening the Chronolock and letting the Shade through. What if we could go one step further?"

Wires ran from circuit boards into a small globe nestled deep inside the box. The globe's surface was clear, but threaded with thin blue lines, alive, crackling and sparking with energy.

Clara couldn't claim to be an expert, but she'd learned a few things about Time Lord technology over the years. "Is that a quantum containment hub?"

The Doctor raised an appreciative eyebrow. "Yes it is."

"We could…trap the Shade in it?"

The Doctor grinned. "Exactly! The stronite will power a dispersal field and that will stop whatever is weakening the Chronolock. So you'll be stable again. We won't have to worry about the Shade sneaking through. But you'll still have to go back to the Trap Street one day."

Clara closed her eyes against the unwanted image of coal-dark bird swooping towards her, graceful in its elegance, deadly in its intent. She grit his teeth, forcing herself back to the moment. She wasn't helpless _now._ They had a plan.

The Doctor's voice confirmed it. "We can use the power in the darkstar fragments to capture the Shade and hold it in the buffer."

"For how long?"

"Forever."

"I won't have to go back?"

"No. If this works, you'll be free of the Shade, Clara."

Free of the Shade? Clara's mind reeled. She'd spent so long trapped between one heartbeat and the last, living on stolen time. What would it be like to be free? To not know how her story would end?

After a few more moments with the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor glanced up. His breathing seemed a little laboured.

Clara checked his patch. A third square was changing colour, shifting from green to yellow, and edging to amber. "Doctor, I don't like the look of this-"

"It's okay. I'm okay. I can hold it off if it starts."

"Are you sure?" The thought of a regeneration now was too cruel, not when they were so close to making this work.

He nodded. "Mad skills. Don't worry. I won't change."

"You had better not."

"Are you ready? We need the darkstar fragments exposed. I'm afraid it might hurt you."

Clara took his hand. "It's alright." Clara unwrapped the pendant and undid the top button of her shirt, letting the dark gem fall onto her skin. Instantly, the heat started to grow.

The door rattled. Something growled beyond. "Better hurry."

The Doctor closed his eyes. "I'm sending a neurochemical cascade from my cortex to my heart. The monitor will show a sharp spike in heart rate. They'll know it's time to link our hands."

Clara took the Doctor's hand, as, back at the Diner, Ashildr and Drellmar joined their two hands. "Whatever happens…" Clara said softly, "Just know I'll never be sorry, not for one moment, that you knocked on my door. I've loved every minute we had together. Even the horrible ones."

He squeezed her hand. "Me too. But this isn't the end. This will work."

The machine built power. Suddenly, a silver tear appeared in the air behind the machine. For a heartbeat, there was a heavy silence, a pause between this moment and the next, when the tear sparkled, a million stars winking in and out of the blackness.

Then the thrum, thrum, of wings began, slowly, rippling the air, thief of time, bringer of death.

"Oh God," Clara muttered, hands trembling. This was it, the moment she'd dreaded, but in some strange way longed for at times. Facing the Raven for the second time. She never imagined it would happen anywhere but the Trap Street. Never imagined the Doctor would be at her side, his presence awful and reassuring all at once. Her Doctor. Her impossible hero. The man she loved. The necklace seared her skin, and she flinched against the heat, fancied she could smell her flesh burning, but she resisted touching the black and silver gem.

The Doctor sent a wave of sonic energy towards the darkstar fragments. The neckless began to vibrate, banging hot and hard against her chest. She gasped, her hands trembling. But she stood firm.

The raven swooped through the tear in space and time, wide wings flapping in a graceful rhythm, black feathers shining as if it captured starlight and reflected it back in reverse; the pure absence of light.

Clara wanted to run. She wanted to be brave. Most of all, she wanted this to _work._ The machine powered up, a high buzzing building in its core, the containment hub crackling with blue light. The bird passed the machine, swooping right towards her.

"Let me be brave," she whispered, those same words from so long ago. The darkstar in her necklace hummed and fizzed, vibrating in time with the buzz from the degradation buffer, heating up against her skin until she wanted to scream.

The Raven cawed. The sound had echoed down the ages for Clara, haunting her dreams with the shadow of death. She forced her eyes open. _Stand your ground. Be brave._

The degradation buffer whined, the sound rising in pitch until Clara felt it in her chest rather than heard it. A funnel of blue light sprung from the machine, latching onto the raven's black underbelly, painting the black down in a sapphire glow,

As if in slow motion, the buffer sucked at the Quantum Shade, drawing it feather by feather, atom by atom, down into the containment hub.

Something tore the skin on the back of Clara's neck. She yelped, her hand flying to her tattoo. Her fingers prickled, and she had the unnerving sensation of something passing right through the skin and bone of her hand. A swirling, inky fog trailed towards the disintegrating Quantum Shade, the particles mingling and merging in the air.

For a moment, a bilious cloud of blue-black smoke was all that remained of the Quantum shade, and then it drifted and dispersed, until it too was gone too.

Clara staggered, as if she'd miss-timed a kick at the punch bag and it had slammed back into her body. She clutched her chest, unsure if she could even keep her feet.

Was she really free of the Shade?

The Doctor caught her before she could fall, steadying her on her feet and drawing her into a grateful hug. "It worked," he whispered, holding her tight, and repeating the phrase like an incantation.

Her whole body trembled. A guttural sob escaped her. His arms enveloped her, pulling her in, and then tears came, hot, sweet, and spilling down her cheeks, wetting his face as he held her close, rocking her, trembling himself as he did.

Tight-throated, she blinked her tears away, and kissed him full on the mouth. His fingers were on her neck, as if he was feeling out for the tattoo, assuring himself it was gone.

Clara knew it was. She felt lighter, somehow, freer. She lifted her hair and spun around to show him anyway. "It's gone, isn't it?"

"Yes. No terrible tattoo." He kissed the back of her neck. "Now we just have to get out of here. Back to the Diner."

"I love you," she said, breathless, turning back into his arms. "When we get back I'll show you how much."

Clara's voice was raspy in a way that made the Doctor shudder. He quirked a sly grin, and kissed her again.

#

In the darkness of the deserted Scendeles Chapterhouse, by means of a holographic projection, Primus Eutenoyar, the First, soon-to-be president of the High Council of Gallifrey, rightful heir to the Keys of Rassilon, observed the Doctor and Clara, and their lurid emotional display, with disgust. The flesh really was weak.

Eutenoyar's psychic projections had wholly failed to break the Doctor and Clara. With fury twisting his gut, he'd watched his beasts defeated. The Quantum Shade was trapped forever beyond his reach, and with it, his hopes of easily ridding himself of the hybrid threat. The new prophecy proclaimed the hybrid would seal the door against the First. He waved a hand over the distasteful sight of the Doctor and Clara kissing unashamedly, bodies entwined, almost summoning the hybrid on the spot. The image vanished from the air.

With an angry wave, he flashed up the lights, illuminating his newly refurbished Chapterhouse where row after row of plush, red seats faced a raised dias. He strode to the centre, halting by a half-assembled device standing as high as his shoulder and skirting the back of the stage. It curved in a semi-circle, as if he planned to give a demonstration or lecture. Some of his younger supporters had speculated he planned to showcase some technological breakthrough, and it suited Eutenoyar to let that misinformation gather force, deflecting closer examination of the truth.

He swirled his dark, galaxy-specked cloak around him. So unlike Time Lord regalia, that once it brought him ridicule. Recently, he'd seen others wearing cloaks scattered with stars like his own. But none shone as brightly.

Some of his proposals had caused a stir, of course they did, but while Gallifrey debated in circles, he quietly gathered allies and resources, and began building. In the bluster around why the Scendeles Chapter needed a Time Scoop, no one questioned the other uses of the device, hidden so obscurely in the programme code, that even his chief technician didn't question it.

Progress with the machine pleased him greatly. An odd, calming coolness seeped into him as he brushed his bony fingers along the dull silver surface. With something close to love in his cold hearts, he flicked a switch on the device, powering a section up. Blue lights flashed along circuit pathways, a flashy show to activate one of the machine's more ordinary purposes- communication.

The most difficult stage of the project lay ahead. There were complex components to secure and integrate, testing his engineering skills to the limit. The one part he needed, the most unpredictable and dangerous part of them all, was still at large. Eutenoyar smiled as he recalled a conversation with General T'Nia, as she questioned why he had searched the Matrix to pinpoint Omega Zero, the exact moment in space time that the ancient Omega perfected time travel. She'd accused him of planning to interfere with that moment.

"It's impossible, anyway, no matter what your deranged mind's dreamed up," she'd said scornfully. "That point is shielded. We constructed the Veil of Omega the last time someone tried to subvert the development of time travel. You'd need to divert a huge amount regeneration power to breach it. I doubt you're prepared to gamble what you've got left." After that, T'Nia, the obstructive fool, had posted a heavy guard around the regeneration complex. He'd never get in without giving away his hand. But it scarcely mattered. He knew exactly where he could acquire the regenerational energy he needed _and_ put a stop to the hybrid prophecy in one decisive move.

He would snatch the Doctor.


	17. Chapter 17: A Moment of Freedom

Clara felt _free_. It was a giddy kind of feeling, sending her heart soaring and head reeling. The fixed point at the end of her life, the poisonous shadow snapping at her heels since that dark day on the Trap Street, had just blown away like smoke. Well, sucked, particle by particle, into the degradation buffer's containment hub, to be precise.

As the Doctor extracted the hub from the degradation buffer, thin strands of smoke swirled and twisted inside the clear globe; a delicate black fog trapped in a miniature world.

Shifting from foot to foot, fingers twitching, Clara was drawn to the globe's smooth surface, but at the same time, afraid to touch it.

"Is that it?" she breathed. "The Shade?"

"Suspended in its natural state," said the Doctor. Perhaps he noticed her agitation, because he hastily wrapped the globe in a cloth and slipped it in his pocket, out of sight. He selected some other components from the buffer, presumably those most useful or hard to replace, and crammed those in the backpack. He left the case and power source behind. The spent stronite was now little more than a shrunken grey husk.

"How do we get out?" Clara asked. After the blackness of the Dark Cell, the stark walls and white floor in this chamber had been a relief, but now the harsh glare threatened to overwhelm her fizzing brain.

The Doctor's eyes flitted about the room, weighing up the next move. "We need to manifest a door."

He seemed effervescent, his gaze holding hers as they linked hands, lips twitching into a grin he could hardly contain. Energy buzzed between them, something primal, a _want_ denied, pushed aside with months of forced distance, too many nights separated by a mocking pillow in the middle of their bed. Well, now there was nothing to come between them. With that thought, fireworks fizzed behind Clara's eyes, a dizzying rush of emotions jockeying for place in her scrambled brain. They were going home, back to the Diner. At last they could love each other.

Clara focused her mind on the shape of a door, conjuring an image of the Diner's medical bay, anchoring on the spot they wished to return to. Beside her, his hand tight in hers, the Doctor closed his eyes too, and she saw his visioning in _her_ mind. Together, they dreamed a doorway home.

#

Clara sat bolt upright in the medical bed, swung her legs over the side, but didn't quite trust them to hold her yet. Ashildr was close, and Drellmar stood over the Doctor's bed.

Clara's hand went straight to the back of her neck. "Is it gone?"

Ashildr dodged around to the other side of the bed, and raised Clara's hair to examine the back of her neck. "Yes. It's gone. Thank God, it's finally gone." Ashildr's sure tone, for once, flittered at the edge of cracking.

Clara had forgiven her long ago, but now, in this final moment Lady Me's reserve almost broke. She squeezed Clara's shoulder, her hand slightly trembling.

Clara covered Ashildr's hand with her own for a moment. "It's okay. We did it," Clara said. "The Shade's trapped."

The Doctor, already on his feet, cradled the globe in his hands. "I prepared just the spot for you," he told the hub. Opening a small round door, flush with the wall above a row of cupboards, he revealed an alcove with a bright, luminous green lining, and a small plinth in the centre. "There. A miniature Perturbation Chamber." The Doctor turned to Clara. "This will keep the Shade neutralised." He placed the globe on the plinth, and then closed the door, pressing his thumb against a small pad to seal it in. Then he paused for a moment, staring at the top of his hands.

When he turned back towards the room, Clara was startled to see four of the green squares on his safety patch had turned scarlet. "Doctor!" Clara exclaimed. "Your patch!"

"It's alright. I've…" He paused, his eyes growing distant for a moment, and he seemed unsteady on his legs. Clara leapt off the bed, and got her arm around his waist.

Drellmar took his other side, and they guided him back to the medical bed. "What's happening?"

The Doctor's face greyed-out. His eyes turned glassy, staring into nothing.

"His hands!" Drellmar exclaimed.

They had the faintest whiff of gold about them, the soft glow replacing the grey.

"No! Don't you dare!" Clara took his hands and rubbed them vigorously, as if she could wipe the golden glow away through sheer force of will. "You don't leave _me."_

He drew in a long, shuddering breath, and slowly, his skin returned to its regular colour.

Clara gasped, clutching his hands and kissing them feverishly. "Promise me. Promise you won't change!"

He managed a weak smile. "I'll do everything I can not to," he whispered.

Clara hated it, but she knew that was the best he could do. She kissed him, full on the mouth, a desperate, awkward kiss, bent over the medical bed as she was, aware too Drellmar and Ashildr were close by, but caring little for that. The Doctor pulled her into the kiss anyway, looping his arms around her, thrusting his hands into her hair, kissing her as if his life depended on it.

His touch was intoxicating. To be this close to the Doctor after so long sent heat spiraling through Clara, a dizzy wave of want and need coiling within her. His hands, soft and gentle, pulled her in, and the _otherness_ of him blazed. It was as if she could taste stardust on his lips.

Drellmar and Ashildr busied themselves at a monitor behind the med bay's desk. At first Clara thought they were being discreet, but Drellmar's worried tone filtered through the haze.

"Can she do that?"

"I'm not sure," Ashildr replied, eyes narrow, face wrinkled with concern.

Reluctantly, Clara broke the kiss and focused her attention on her friends. "What?"

Ashildr stepped away from the monitor and closer to the Doctor and Clara. "It's General T'Nia. From Gallifrey. She says she's coming aboard."

The Doctor's face registered surprise, and then cracked with a shot of guilt. "T'Nia? Didn't I shoot her last time we met?"

Clara pressed her lips together and nodded. "'Fraid so." She directed her next question to Ashildr and Drellmar. "Do we know what she wants?"

"She told us earlier she needed to talk with you and the Doctor," Ashildr said. "She confirmed that the First _is_ Primus Eutenoyar. He's trying to rebuild Gallifrey's war capability by the sound of it, and the General isn't happy."

The Doctor groaned. "That's all we need. Trigger happy Time Lords." He shot an embarrassed glance in Clara's direction, and said, not without a touch of defensiveness, " _I_ learned my lesson."

#

General T'Nia's uncamouflaged TARDIS hung in the space-time vortex, a silver cylinder, next to the faintly ridiculous form of a Type 40 TARDIS locked in the shape of some kind of building. It was from Earth, T'Nia suspected, since the Doctor had such an odd compulsion to keep revisiting the strange little planet, and most of his friends hailed from there. T'Nia could override the Type 40's shields and simply transmat herself aboard, of course. But perhaps it would be better to wait to be asked.

She needed their help, after all.

T'Nia spoke into the communications display, keeping her tone as light and even as she could under the circumstances. "Let me rephrase that. I'd like permission to come aboard."

On the screen, a face appeared, an older man, grey haired, still. T'Nia noted this with relief, because recently she'd started to believe that the hybrid prophecy was worryingly specific. Not just two warrior races joined. Not even a particular Time Lord and human. No, some of the newer data spat out by the Matrix made her think the hybrid would spring only from this particular _version_ of the Doctor, and the human woman he'd shot her previous body for so many years ago. T'Nia flinched a little, the shame of being shot with her own gun still prickling. But she put that aside. There was too much at stake to dwell on past misfortune.

"Doctor. I am pleased to see you," T'Nia said.

The Doctor's lips were pressed tight together, whether in annoyance or shame she couldn't tell.

"General." He paused, his eyes flashing away from the screen for a moment. "I should apologise. For the…" he rubbed his ear, his discomfort clearly telegraphed by his twitchy movements. "Ah. For shooting you."

T'Nia waved her hand. "It is of no consequence. Is Clara Oswald with you?"

His face stiffened, immediately suspicious. Clearly he wasn't over the human woman yet.

"Why?" he said.

"I must talk to you both. May I come aboard?"

The Doctor snorted. "May you? You'll come anyway."

T'Nia could see the Doctor's mind racing, running scenarios. "Are you alone?" he said. "You're alone, aren't you. Why else track us down like this. What's going on?"

At that, T'Nia knew she had him. The Doctor's curiosity wouldn't let this go.

There was a moment of silence where he'd cut sound, presumably to consult his friends, and then he looked back at the screen.

"Alright. We've lowered our shields. Come aboard."

#

 **In the Diner.**

General T'Nia stared at the Doctor. Her eyes flicked down to the safety patch, still attached to his jacket, and strode into the Diner. The squares were all green again, their systems flushed clear by now, but the presence of the patch would tip the General off as to where they'd been.

"The Dark Cell?" the General said, incredulous. "Why?"

The Doctor considered bluffing, but it hardly seemed worthwhile. The General must know someone had been weakening the Chronolock. The Doctor's recent raid on the Extraction Chamber, and subsequent theft of the blueprints for a degradation buffer, would leave a trail of clues so obvious it would hardly take Sherlock Holmes to deduce what he'd done.

The General held up her hand, realising she didn't need an answer to that question, and asked another. "Did it work?" This was directly to Clara, who shot a stiff smile.

"It worked," Clara said.

T'Nia nodded, seemingly appreciative of the achievement, but her dark eyes were on the Doctor. "You had a close shave." She took a step towards him, as if she could smell regeneration energy on his skin.

"Not really," the Doctor said, with a casual air he was hard pressed to own. Even now he felt his cells tingling, on the verge of releasing another burst of energy from the specialised mitochondria. Again he fought the process down. He promised Clara he wouldn't change, and that was a promise he intended to keep as long as he could.

"Why are you here?" he asked T'Nia.

"Primus Eutenoyar."

"He's a problem. I can see that. Ashildr and Drellmar told me he's trying to put Gallifrey on a war footing. Surely the fools on the High Council won't let that happen?"

"Since _you_ sent them down to the sewers, Doctor, the High Council has a credibility problem."

"Oh." The Doctor's face twitched. It had seemed a reasonable response to their terrible posturing, not to mention satisfying vengeance for the Confession Dial. But perhaps it hadn't been one of his better jokes.

"It's worse than that, though. He's been searching for point Omega Zero. He's planning to unravel the web of time and remake it in his own image, so he, and he alone, controls time travel. 'A strong Gallifrey is a safe Gallifrey. A safe Gallifrey is a safe universe.' But I've seen his _safety_. He'll start with the Daleks, but he won't stop there."

The Doctor shook his head. It was true: megalomania bred dictators that stifled progress and freedom. Hate stoked hate. But surely it wouldn't come to that? "The Veil of Omega protects that moment in time. Eutenoyar won't be able get past it. He'd be bounced right back if he tried to land there."

"Yes. But I believe he's been working on a chrono-ballistic array."

"Oh." The Doctor paused, searching his memory for morsels of information about that particular weapon. During the Time War, he'd spent too many bleak nights crammed into stinky, sweaty rooms, desperately devising weapons to fight the Daleks. But _that_ one had never even got off the drawing board, for one very good reason. "He'd need enormous amount of xeno-frequency energy to pierce the Veil, and that's impossible to come by in any quantity." The Doctor paused, seeing a hole in that argument already. "I presume you've restricted access to the Regeneration Complex?"

An uneasy feeling surged in the Doctor's gut. Not quite _impossible._ Just a very high cost, one the Time Lords hadn't been prepared to pay, even then. The General's eyes bored into him, and suddenly he knew why she was here. Xeno-frequency energy was a major part of the regeneration process, triggering the mitochondria in a Time Lord's cells to begin the process of destruction and rebirth. The General had cut off the possibility of Eutenoyar getting regeneration energy on Gallifrey. But there was another source, possibly unlimited — he didn't even know himself — standing right in front of her this very moment: _him._

"Wait," Clara held up a hand. "He thinks your whatever-energy can get him to that moment when Omega created time travel. Then what?"

"Nothing good," the Doctor said.

"That doesn't explain why he's been going after Clara," Ashildr interjected.

The General said two words that were guaranteed to infuriate Clara. "The hybrid."

Clara groaned aloud, her eyes flaring, and she slapped the Diner's counter hard with the flat of her hand.

The General held up her own hands in a placating gesture. "There's been a new prophecy. That the hybrid defeats the First. Closes the door. I think it means restore the Veil. That's why he weakened the chrono-lock. He wanted the Shade to finish you off. No Clara Oswald, no hybrid. But now…" The General's eyes fell on the Doctor.

"He'll come after the Doctor," Clara filled in, hollow-eyed.

"I fear so." The General straightened her back, her hand hovering over her pistol. The Doctor couldn't gauge how prepared she was to use it. "That's why I suggest you two come with me," she went on. "Into protective custody."

The Doctor scoffed, making a disparaging sound deep in his throat, but didn't dignify that idea with an answer.

Clara, however, didn't hold back. "You must be joking," she said scornfully. "What makes you think you lot could possibly keep us safe?"

As she spoke, Clara's eyes widened. She was staring at _him_ , her mouth dropped open, obviously startled. He wondered why.

Then he felt a familiar sting, tearing his skin, tugging on his bones. That most raw form of time travel, less dignified even than a vortex manipulator. He'd felt it before, long ago, when he'd been snatched away into the Death Zone.

He looked down in horror as his body dissolved, his atoms inexorably displaced by an unseen force, his body mass pulled in every direction at once.

Clara made a bolt for him, but T'Nia, to her credit, swiftly held her back. Wherever he was being taken, the Doctor didn't want Clara there too.

"Doctor!" Clara screamed. "What's happening to him?"

The last thing he heard was the General talking urgently to Clara. "It's Eutenoyar. He's using a Time Scoop. Where's your console room? We have to track where he's taking him."

Then he was spinning, trapped inside a wall of blackness, the raw energy of the time vortex screaming through his body, wrenching his nerve endings, his hearts rushing to the desperate rhythm of the untempered time winds. Violent flashes bloomed behind his eyelids, painting the world fiery red, and he flung his hands to his face, to block it out. Nothing helped. The noise was like the engines of a thousand TARDISes crashing together at once. He didn't know which to block, his eyes or his ears.

The Doctor clung to consciousness just long enough to comprehend, a moment of knife-sharp, clarity through the haze of chaos: Eutenoyar wanted his remaining regenerations to unleash hell on the universe.


	18. Chapter 18

Clara felt _free_. It was a giddy kind of feeling, sending her heart soaring and head reeling. The fixed point at the end of her life, the poisonous shadow snapping at her heels since that dark day on the Trap Street, had just blown away like smoke. Well, more accurately it had been sucked, particle by particle, into the degradation buffer's containment hub.

As the Doctor extracted the hub from the degradation buffer, thin strands of smoke swirled and twisted inside the clear globe; a delicate black fog trapped in a miniature world.

Shifting from foot to foot, fingers twitching, Clara was both drawn to the globe's smooth surface and afraid to touch it.

"Is that it?" she breathed. "The Shade?"

"Suspended in its natural state," said the Doctor, grinning. Then perhaps he noticed her agitation, because he hastily wrapped the globe in a cloth and slipped it in his pocket, out of sight. He selected some other components from the buffer, presumably those most useful or hard to replace, and crammed those in the backpack, discarding the power source. The spent stronite was now little more than a shrunken grey husk.

"How do we get out?" Clara asked. After the blackness of the Dark Cell, the stark walls and white floor in this chamber had been a relief, but now the harsh glare threatened to overwhelm her fizzing brain.

The Doctor's eyes flitted about the room. "We need to manifest a door."

He seemed effervescent, his gaze holding hers as they linked hands, lips twitching into a grin he could hardly contain. Energy buzzed between them, something primal, a _want_ denied by too many nights separated by a mocking pillow in the middle of their bed. Well, now nothing would come between them. With that thought, fireworks fizzed behind Clara's eyes, a dizzying rush of emotions jockeying for place in her scrambled brain. They were going home, back to the Diner. At last they could love each other.

Clara focused her mind on the shape of a door, conjuring an image of the Diner's medical bay, anchoring on the spot they wished to return to. Beside her, his hand tight in hers, the Doctor closed his eyes too, and she saw his visioning in _her_ mind. Together, they dreamed a doorway home.

#

Clara sat bolt upright in the medical bed, swung her legs over the side, but didn't quite trust them to hold her yet. Ashildr was close, and Drellmar stood over the Doctor's bed.

Clara's hand flew to the back of her neck. "Is it gone?"

Ashildr dodged around the other side of the bed, and raised Clara's hair. "Yes. It's gone. Thank God, it's finally gone." Ashildr's sure tone, for once, flittered at the edge of cracking.

Although Clara had forgiven her long ago, in this final moment Lady Me's reserve almost broke. She squeezed Clara's shoulder with a trembling hand.

Clara covered Ashildr's hand with her own for a moment. "It's okay. We did it," Clara said. "The Shade's trapped."

The Doctor, already on his feet, cradled the globe in his hands. "I prepared just the spot for you," he told the hub. Opening a small round door, flush with the wall above a row of cupboards, he revealed an alcove with a luminous green lining, and a small plinth in the centre. "There. A miniature Perturbation Chamber." The Doctor turned to Clara. "This will keep the Shade neutralised." He placed the globe on the plinth, and then closed the door, pressing his thumb against a small pad to seal it in. Then he paused for a moment, staring at the top of his hands.

When he turned back towards the room, four of the green squares on his safety patch had turned scarlet.

"Doctor!" Clara exclaimed. "Your patch!"

"It's alright. I've…" He paused, his eyes growing distant for a moment, and he seemed unsteady on his legs. Clara leapt off the bed, and got her arm around his waist.

Drellmar took his other side, and they guided him back to the medical bed. "What's happening?"

The Doctor's face greyed-out. His eyes turned glassy, staring into nothing.

"His hands!" Drellmar exclaimed.

They had the faintest whiff of gold about them, the soft glow replacing the grey.

"No! Don't you dare!" Clara took his hands and rubbed them vigorously, as if she could disperse the golden glow through sheer force of will. "You don't leave _me."_

He drew in a long, shuddering breath, and slowly, his skin returned to its regular colour.

Clara gasped, clutching his hands and kissing them feverishly. "Promise me. Promise you won't change!"

He managed a weak smile. "I'll do everything I can not to," he whispered.

Clara hated it, but she knew that was the best he could do. She kissed him, full on the mouth, a desperate, awkward kiss, bent over the medical bed as she was, aware too Drellmar and Ashildr were close by, but caring little for that. The Doctor pulled her into the kiss anyway, looping his arms around her, thrusting his hands into her hair, kissing her as if his life depended on it.

His touch was intoxicating. To be this close to the Doctor after so long sent heat spiraling through Clara, a dizzy wave of want and need coiling within her. His hands, soft and gentle, pulled her in, and the _otherness_ of him blazed. It was as if she could taste stardust on his lips.

Drellmar and Ashildr busied themselves at a monitor behind the med bay's desk. At first Clara thought they were being discreet, but Drellmar's worried tone filtered through the haze.

"Can she do that?"

"I'm not sure," Ashildr replied, eyes narrow, face wrinkled with concern.

Reluctantly, Clara broke the kiss and focused her attention on her friends. "What?"

Ashildr stepped away from the monitor and closer to the Doctor and Clara. "It's General T'Nia. From Gallifrey. She says she's coming aboard."

The Doctor's face registered surprise, and then cracked with a shot of guilt. "T'Nia? Didn't I shoot her last time we met?"

Clara pressed her lips together and nodded. "'Fraid so." She directed her next question to Ashildr and Drellmar. "Do we know what she wants?"

"She told us earlier she needed to talk with you and the Doctor," Ashildr said. "She confirmed that the First _is_ Primus Eutenoyar. He's trying to rebuild Gallifrey's war capability by the sound of it, and the General isn't happy."

The Doctor groaned. "That's all we need. Trigger happy Time Lords." He shot an embarrassed glance in Clara's direction, and said, not without a touch of defensiveness, " _I_ learned my lesson."

#

General T'Nia's uncamouflaged TARDIS hung in the space-time vortex, a silver cylinder, next to the faintly ridiculous form of a Type 40 TARDIS locked in the shape of some kind of building. It was from Earth, T'Nia suspected, since the Doctor had such an odd compulsion to keep revisiting the strange little planet, and most of his friends hailed from there. T'Nia could override the Type 40's shields and simply transmat herself aboard, of course. But perhaps it would be better to wait to be asked.

She needed their help, after all.

T'Nia spoke into the communications display, keeping her tone as light and even as she could under the circumstances. "Let me rephrase that. I'd like permission to come aboard."

On the screen, a face appeared, an older man, grey haired, still. T'Nia noted this with relief, because recently she'd started to believe that the hybrid prophecy was worryingly specific. Not just two warrior races joined. Not even a particular Time Lord and human. No, some of the newer data spat out by the Matrix made her think the hybrid would spring only from this particular _version_ of the Doctor, and the human woman he'd shot her previous body for so many years ago. T'Nia flinched a little, the shame of being shot with her own gun still prickling. But she put that aside. There was too much at stake to dwell on past misfortune.

"Doctor. I am pleased to see you," T'Nia said.

The Doctor's lips were pressed tight together, whether in annoyance or shame she couldn't tell.

"General." He paused, his eyes flashing away from the screen for a moment. "I should apologise. For the…" he rubbed his ear, his discomfort clearly telegraphed by his twitchy movements. "Ah. For shooting you."

T'Nia waved her hand. "It is of no consequence. Is Clara Oswald with you?"

His face stiffened, immediately suspicious. Clearly he wasn't over the human woman yet.

"Why?" he said.

"I need to talk to you both. May I come aboard?"

The Doctor snorted. "May you? You'll come anyway."

T'Nia could see the Doctor's mind racing, running scenarios. "Are you alone?" he said. "You're alone, aren't you. Why else track us down like this. What's going on?"

At that, T'Nia knew she had him. The Doctor's curiosity wouldn't let this go.

There was a moment of silence where he'd cut sound, presumably to consult his friends, and then he looked back at the screen.

"Alright. We've lowered our shields. Come aboard."

#

 **In the Diner.**

The Doctor watched warily as General T'Nia entered the Diner. Her eyes flicked down to the safety patch still attached to his jacket. The squares were all green again now, both he and Clara's systems had been given the all-clear, but the presence of the patch would tip the General off as to where they'd been.

"The Dark Cell?" the General sounded incredulous. "Why?"

The Doctor considered bluffing, but it hardly seemed worthwhile. The General must know someone had been weakening the Chronolock. The Doctor's recent raid on the Extraction Chamber and subsequent theft of the blueprints for a degradation buffer would have left a trail of clues so obvious it would hardly take Sherlock Holmes to deduce what he'd done.

The General held up her hand, probably realising she didn't need an answer to that question, and asked another. "Did it work?" This was directly to Clara, who shot a stiff smile.

"It worked," Clara said.

T'Nia nodded, seemingly appreciative of the achievement, but her dark eyes were on the Doctor. "You had a close shave." She took a step towards him, as if she could smell regeneration energy on his skin.

"Not really," the Doctor affected a casual air he was hard pressed to own. Even now he felt his cells tingling, on the verge of releasing another burst of energy from the specialised mitochondria. Again he fought the process down. He promised Clara he wouldn't change, and that was a promise he intended to keep as long as he could.

"Why are you here?" he asked T'Nia.

"Primus Eutenoyar."

"He's a problem. I can see that. Ashildr and Drellmar told me he's trying to put Gallifrey on a war footing. Surely the fools on the High Council won't let that happen?"

"Since _you_ sent them down to the sewers, Doctor, the High Council has a credibility problem."

"Oh." The Doctor's face twitched. It had seemed a reasonable response to their terrible posturing, not to mention satisfying vengeance for the Confession Dial. But perhaps it hadn't been one of his better jokes.

"It's worse than that, though. He's been searching for point Omega Zero. He's planning to unravel the web of time. He'll remake it in his own image, so he, and he alone, controls time travel. 'A strong Gallifrey is a safe Gallifrey. A safe Gallifrey is a safe universe.' But I've seen his _safety_. He'll start with the Daleks, but he won't stop there."

The Doctor shook his head. It was true: megalomania bred dictators that stifled progress and freedom. Hate stoked hate. But surely it wouldn't come to that? "The Veil of Omega protects that moment in time. Eutenoyar won't be able get past it. He'd be bounced right back if he tried to land there."

"Yes. But I believe he's been working on a chrono-ballistic array."

"Oh." The Doctor paused, searching his memory for morsels of information about that particular weapon. During the Time War, he'd spent too many bleak nights crammed into stinky, sweaty rooms, desperately devising weapons to fight the Daleks. But _that_ one had never even got off the drawing board, for one very good reason. "He'd need enormous amount of xeno-frequency energy to pierce the Veil, and that's impossible to come by in any quantity." The Doctor paused, seeing a hole in that argument already. "I presume you've restricted access to the Regeneration Complex?"

An uneasy feeling surged in the Doctor's gut. Not quite _impossible._ Just a very high cost, one the Time Lords hadn't been prepared to pay, even then. The General's eyes bored into him, and suddenly he knew why she was here. Xeno-frequency energy was a major part of the regeneration process, triggering the mitochondria in a Time Lord's cells to begin the process of destruction and rebirth. The General had cut off the possibility of Eutenoyar getting regeneration energy on Gallifrey. But there was another source, possibly unlimited — he didn't even know himself — standing right in front of her this very moment: _him._

"Wait," Clara held up a hand. "He thinks your whatever-energy can get him to that moment when Omega created time travel. Then what?"

"Nothing good," the Doctor said.

"That doesn't explain why he's been going after Clara," Ashildr interjected.

The General said two words that were guaranteed to infuriate Clara. "The hybrid."

Clara groaned aloud, her eyes flaring, and she slapped the Diner's counter hard with the flat of her hand.

The General held up her own hands in a placating gesture. "There's been a new prophecy. That the hybrid defeats the First. Closes the door. I think it means restore the Veil. That's why he weakened the chrono-lock. He wanted the Shade to finish you off. No Clara Oswald, no hybrid. But now…" The General's eyes fell on the Doctor.

"He'll come after the Doctor," Clara filled in, hollow-eyed.

"I fear so." The General straightened her back, her hand hovering over her pistol. The Doctor couldn't gauge how prepared she was to use it. "That's why I suggest you two come with me," she went on. "Into protective custody."

The Doctor scoffed, making a disparaging sound deep in his throat, but didn't dignify that idea with an answer.

Clara, however, didn't hold back. "You must be joking," she said scornfully. "What makes you think you lot could possibly keep us safe?"

As she spoke, Clara's eyes widened. She was staring at _him_ , her mouth dropped open, obviously startled. He wondered why.

Then he felt a familiar sting, tearing his skin, tugging on his bones. That most raw form of time travel, less dignified even than a vortex manipulator. He'd felt it before, long ago, when he'd been snatched away into the Death Zone.

He looked down in horror at his body dissolving, his atoms inexorably displaced by an unseen force, his body mass pulled in every direction at once.

Clara made a bolt for him, but T'Nia, to her credit, swiftly held her back. Wherever he was being taken, the Doctor didn't want Clara there too.

"Doctor!" Clara screamed. "What's happening to him?"

The last thing he heard was the General talking urgently to Clara. "It's Eutenoyar. He's using a Time Scoop. Where's your console room? We have to track where he's taking him."

Then he was spinning, trapped inside a wall of blackness, the raw energy of the time vortex screaming through his body, wrenching his nerve endings, his hearts rushing to the desperate rhythm of the untempered time winds. Violent flashes bloomed behind his eyelids, painting the world fiery red, and he flung his hands to his face, to block it out. Nothing helped. The noise was like the engines of a thousand TARDISes crashing together at once, and he didn't know which to block, his eyes or his ears.

The Doctor clung to consciousness just long enough to comprehend, a moment of knife-sharp, clarity through the haze of chaos: Eutenoyar wanted to steal his remaining regenerations to unleash hell on the universe.


	19. Chapter 19

Seconds before, Clara had sunk to the floor in the console room, with General T'Nia looking on, as the Doctor's TARDIS snatched him from the time vortex seconds before Clara could effect a rescue.

This couldn't be happening. Surely she couldn't lose the Doctor and then be thrust back into her living, breathing life a few minutes later? He'd been here in the Diner, in her arms, kissing her at last, only to be snatched away by the First. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. The universe owed her better.

With that thought, Clara's whole body spasmed, as if her emotions found physical expression. Pain ripped through her, crushing her chest, building, building forcing out an agonized howl. The scream died on her lips, an ancient thing that didn't belong in this bright console room, but to a cobblestoned place, under a cloudy British sky.

Clara drew in a long, shuddering breath.

Stars filled her vision, tiny pricks of light burst behind her eyes, and she felt herself falling, spinning out of control, helpless, white noise in her brain like a thousand snakes hissing. A hundred years of nothing, no feelings, no thrill of pleasure nor stabbing of pain, not so much as an itch or a hangnail, replaced by every cell in her body screaming. She'd almost forgotten the gut-wrenching terror of that final moment when the raven hit her so long ago. Almost. Not quite. Her body remembered the pain and she felt it all over again.

Her thinking splintered.

Pain, pain, pain.

Was this re-birth or death?

Clara clutched her head, her vision narrowing to a black tunnel, panic swamping her; breath coming too fast, body burning, and tears, tears, tears. No courage left. He was gone, back into that other life, with no memory of her. Clara's last thought hit her like a hammer before darkness consumed her. _If_ this _is living again, then I don't want it._

#

"Clara." Ashildr's voice filtered through, uncharacteristically soft, although Clara only registered that at the edge of her senses. Her friend shook her shoulder gently. "I think she's still out."

Clara wasn't out, but she wanted to be. If she just lay here with her eyes closed, perhaps she could avoid the inevitable. The Doctor had forgotten her again. All they had built over the months smashed apart. For all she knew he was already gone forever, burned up in the gold light of regeneration, forever beyond her reach. Someone else might be at the helm of the TARDIS right now, spinning off to new friends, new adventures. The same Doctor and yet physically different. Clara couldn't go through it all again.

"Oh, she's conscious." This was General T'Nia's knowing voice. "Clara, he's not gone yet," she said, matter of factly. "We can track him. He'll be hard to reach because Eutenoyar's phase-shift extrapolator locked us into different chrono-streams. But he's still there."

Clara opened her eyes and then squinted against the brightness. The thundering rush in her ears made the world too loud. Fighting the urge to curl up with her eyes screwed shut and her hands over her ears, she sat up. Hot-flushed nausea rolled through her, wave after wave, but when she retched into the bedpan Drellmar astutely placed under her nose, Clara's stomach was empty.

"You look terrible," Ashildr noted.

" _You_ come back from the dead after a hundred years and see how you feel." Clara groaned and laid back. If she lay very still, then maybe the room would stop spinning and she could make sense of things.

"He's not gone," Ashildr said, the sympathy vanishing from her voice, replaced by her usual imperious edge. "He's still, tall, skinny, and Scottish."

Clara took a few steady breaths. Alright. That was good news at least. She was free of both the chronolock and the Quantum Shade. Not only that, she was breathing again. That had to be good news, didn't it? She risked opening her eyes again, and this time the room didn't dance the hokey cokey, but snakes still infested her head.

"What's that noise," she groaned, her voice a hoarse whisper.

"It's probably your pulse in your ears. You'll adjust and filter it out soon enough," Drellmar explained.

Clara caught T'Nia's hand. "He's really alright?"

T'Nia looked at her impassively. "He's back in his proper time stream and he hasn't regenerated. But alright? He's in his ship with a murderous psychopath, his cells pumped up and primed for regeneration. No doubt Primus Eutenoyar is tracking his every move, waiting to steal his remaining lives to break a hole in the universe. He's as far from _alright_ as it's possible to be."

#

On Gallifrey, in his Chapter House, Primus Eutenoyar listened to a crackling coms message from the Polarfrey Obscuration piggybacking its way past Gallifrey's defense grid. "Sir, I can't get a lock on him!"

"Never mind." A flurry of anger settled on Eutenoyar's chest, but he let it drift away. What did it matter if the Doctor spent a few more days chasing whatever childish adventures captured his attention? The phase-shift extrapolator had worked perfectly. Even if Clara Oswald did find the Doctor again, they would be unable to interact. If they couldn't touch, then no matter how many new prophecies the cursed matrix spat out, the hybrid would never come to be.

"Sir?" the voice continued over the communication channel.

"It doesn't matter," Eutenoyar snapped. "His cells are primed. It won't take much to trigger a full regeneration. We have his biosignature locked into the chrono-ballistic array. All we need to do is wait for the beacon."

"Beacon?"

"When the Doctor starts to regenerate he'll create a signal strong enough for the chrono-ballistic array to lock on. The xeno-frequency energy will be diverted here and create a perpetual feedback loop. We'll burn through every last life he has." The Doctor would provide the power to pierce the Veil of Omega. Omega himself, before his time in the antimatter universe turned him into a raging murderer, had been a simple engineer. To steal the secret of time travel at the moment of its creation would be child's play. A satisfied glow settled in Eutenoyar's cold hearts. Once he controlled the secret of time travel, there would be order. Under his leadership Gallifrey would be strong. After all, a strong Gallifrey meant a safe Gallifrey. A safe Gallifrey meant a safe universe. Who in their right mind would argue with that?

#

"The Doctor was right," Clara said, as the room spun around her. "What's the good of safety without freedom?"

Clara's head still pounded, but at least she could sit up without feeling like vomiting. Drellmar and Ashildr had returned from Gallifrey and spent the last half an hour huddled around a monitor, talking in hushed voices with T'Nia. Clara phased in and out of nauseating, head-swimming misery for most of that time, but now she forced herself to an upright position.

"If he finds the Doctor..."

Drellmar glided over to Clara's side, her long white robes trailing just above the floor, making her movements seem smooth and fluid. Clara wondered if she'd ever get used to the air of _otherness_ around the Portant.

"How do you feel, my dear?" Drellmar asked. The kindness of Drellmar's words, as ever, seemed at odds with the prickle of foreboding.

"Better. I think. I can see straight, anyway. I think I might be thirsty." Clara brought her hand to her throat. Then she rubbed her eyes, which were stinging. Her breathing had settled, no more frantic gasping, at least, and when she lay still the hissing in her ears faded into the sound of a distant drum. The cold reality of her situation vied for attention among her anger, fears and grief. No doubt things were happening in her body she was unaware of. She'd probably need the loo soon. Something to look forward to.

Clara rolled her eyes at Ashildr. "Oh god, I'm going to have to start shaving my legs again, aren't I?"

"Only if you feel the need to conform to fleeting Earth gender role pressure." Ashildr sniffed. "I only ever shaved mine between the 1940's and the late twentieth century."

Clara groaned. She'd gotten used to being timelocked. Now she'd have to learn how to live all over again. She wasn't sure she had the energy for it.

T'Nia rose from the console she'd been working at, her face impassive. "Thanks to Drellmar and Ashildr, we have a backdoor into Eutenoyar's chrono-ballistic array."

"Can we use it to find the Doctor?" Clara asked, her interest piqued now, in spite of herself. Perhaps a speck of hope existed in this dark mess after all.

Sorrow flashed in T'Nia's eyes, a brief glimmer of kindness before her steel-gaze returned. "Yes," she said. "But you're not going to like it. We'll be able to lock onto the signal tracking the Doctor at the moment his regeneration reaches its tipping point."

"What?" Clara sat bolt upright now, and paid the price in a rush to her head that sent sparks across her vision. She closed her eyes. "No. Before then. We have to find him before that."

T'Nia pressed her lips together and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't see how. The phase-shift extrapolator locked us into different variants of the time stream. I can modulate the frequency so you can see each other, but beyond that…he will be fully committed to his regeneration by that point."

"No," Clara said. "I don't accept that." She looked desperately from Ashildr to Drellmar. "There must be a way of finding him before that happens!"

"If there was, I wouldn't hide it," T'Nia said. "I'm sorry, really I am, but that's not even the main problem." T'Nia's face reverted to the steel of a soldier. "If we're to stand a hope of stopping this, we have to do it when the chrono-ballistic array is attacking the Veil, at the height of his regeneration, because that's when the array's shields will be down. But we won't have long."

T'Nia continued to work the console, barely looking up from the task. "Eutenoyar will hit the Veil with a billion billion gigawatts of xeno frequency energy. The Veil won't hold up long under that sort of assault. The instant the Veil is weak enough Eutenoyar will burst through to point Omega Zero and…"

Clara faded the conversation out. She knew the consequences well enough if Eutenoyar subverted time travel. But that seemed like a abstract possibility, something that would happen to other people in the future. Her pain was real, happening right now. She'd lost the Doctor again. Forever this time.

#

T'Nia, Ashildr, Drellmar and Clara congregated in the console room. Clara had no appetite, and despite Drellmar's encouraging, Ashildr's cajoling, and T'Nia's thinly disguised indifference, she couldn't take in any more than a few sips of water. Clara had the distinct feeling the general's spring of sympathy had run dry. As far as T'Nia was concerned, the Doctor was a weapon of war that needed to be neutralised, and she couldn't bring herself to care over much if this version of him survived the process. Probably the whole shooting-and-punching-in-the-jaw episode back on Gallifrey somewhat coloured her judgement.

"I'm picking up intermittent bursts of regeneration energy," said the general, glancing at Clara. "He's fighting it back. He really doesn't want to change."

"Can we get a visual?"

"Just snippets," T'Nia said, wrestling with the controls. "He seems to be trapped in a time bubble. He's...Oh. He's not on his own."

"Missy?" Clara speculated, a tight feeling clawing her gut. It would be just like the lover of chaos to get herself in the middle of this.

"No," T'Nia said. "There's a...soldier. Earth, circ 1918 I'd say from the uniform. And...the Doctor's friend. The human girl."

"Bill? That's good." Clara felt comforted by that. He'd died a billion times over, for her, burned up and in agony, alone in that terrible castle. At least he wasn't alone this time.

T'Nia projected a series of disjointed images onto the viewscreen as Clara looked on. The TARDIS was lifted high above a ice field, up into the belly of a huge alien ship. Tiny people leapt from the top and tumbled into the snow below.

"Oh. _Oh."_ T'Nia's voice startled voice made Clara jerk her head around. T'Nia stared at the screen, incredulous, her mouth slightly open. "That's...he couldn't be...I don't believe it...?"

What could possibly shock General T'Nia of Gallifrey?

"What?" Clara and Ashildr choroused.

T'Nia pointed at the screen. "It's _him._ "

"Who?" Ashildr said.

Clara rushed right up to the viewscreen, almost touching it with her fingers. She'd seen that black-coated figure before. A long time ago. The day they went to Trenzalore. Memories flooded back: one man, so many lives. Always running to save the Doctor. Catch him. Guide him.

" _Don't take that one. This one will be much more fun."_

Clara gasped.

"Who _is_ that?" Ashildr asked, stepping close to Clara's side.

T'Nia just shook her head, almost in despair. "That's the Doctor. The original, you might say. The first man to call himself the Doctor."

"Really?" Ashildr said, doubtfully.

"Oh yes. I met him. In a dream, sort of," Clara whispered. "On Gallifrey. A long time ago. The day he ran away." Clara sensed T'Nia looking at her sideways, but she hardly cared.

Drellmar's raised an eyebrow. "Two of them together. Is that...advisable?"

T'Nia rolled her eyes. "Hardly," she said, but she didn't question Clara any further.

Ashildr expelled a breath through her lips. "When has _that_ ever stopped him?"


	20. Chapter 20: The Conlcusion

It is useful to remember… (but a bit spoilery- perhaps don't read if you can remember the story well!)

...that in previous chapters, Clara and the Doctor forged a telepathic link called Embodiment which Clara can use to transport herself to the Doctor. They also speculated on the possibility of a personality 'living on' after regeneration. We also established that when under attack the TARDIS can split off a damaged area and contain it in a temporal pocket while it repairs itself. The Portant of Drellmar has shown herself to be powerful and able to manipulate timelines.

The Conclusion of Be A Doctor...

Clara and T'Nia had spent hours trying to track the Doctor after he returned to his timeline, always catching glimpses - a Roman regiment on a hillside, Cybermen on a spaceship, and then the Doctor falling to the ground in the snow - never able to lock on fully to his signal.

Clara watched T'Nia's fingers fly over the console. "I've tied the signal from Gallifrey into your console so I can monitor the link between the First's machine and the Doctor."

Clara's eyes were fixed on the view screen. Now, the Doctor stood stock still on a battlefield. "What's he doing?"

T'Nia adjusted the signal. "I'm not sure. Perhaps I can tap into the telepathic matrix so we can see what he's seeing."

Clara's jaw dropped as she saw herself, surrounded in light, dressed in clothes she'd thrown away long ago. "Wait. That's not me!"

T'Nia rubbed her jaw, frowning. "I think he thinks it is."

"But look at him!" That smile. It was a smile she'd only seen a few times. He only smiled that way for her. But something was wrong. A cold shock of realisation hit her. "He thinks I'm saying goodbye! No. I have to get there. Show him there's a reason to carry on!"

T'Nia's sad eyes met hers for a moment. "I'm sorry, Clara." Then she turned business like. "I'm monitoring the integrity of the Veil. The power's building up in the chrono-ballistic array. Once it hits twelve percent, the shields will go down and we'll interrupt the power flow. When it does, you need to get this dampening net around the Doctor."

Clara gritted her teeth. Where there was a spark of life, there was hope. She hadn't given up yet. "Alright. I can embody myself next to him. But how will I know when the veil is at twelve percent? I won't be able to talk to you when I'm there."

"You can tap into the telepathic communication circuits," T'Nia said, as if it were obvious.

"I can?"

"A hundred years and did you even read the operating manual?"

"Some of it," Clara sniffed defensively. "It was six thousand pages long."

General T'Nia shook her head. "Just think in my direction. I'll pick it up."

Clara rolled her eyes at that. The Time Lords insisted it wasn't magic, but some days it was impossible to tell the difference. Deep in her newly-beating heart Clara knew from T'Nia's eyes that this was going to be far from easy. There had to be a catch.

"I'm sorry, it won't stop the regeneration. But it might stop Eutenoyar siphoning off his remaining lives." T'Nia passed Clara a small device. It seemed so small - a simple square box in the palm of her hand - to carry out such a momentous task.

"Alright, twelve percent. Got it." Clara sat on a chair in the console room and closed her eyes. She reached out her consciousness towards the Doctor, searching for his psychic energy across the distance of space and time. Would he feel her? More than her friend, more than her hobby. He had become essential to her. She wasn't going to give him up without a fight.

The psychic link was weak, very weak. When Clara finally managed to latch on she feared she was already too late. Then she saw him, standing behind the top rail in the TARDIS, wild-eyed, almost euphoric, desperately holding back because he still had something to say.

"Doctor!" she called, but his eyes were fixed on the center of the console, and he was talking about hatred being foolish and love being kind. Her heart almost broke at the emotion in his eyes. "Doctor, it's me. It's Clara!"

He didn't look towards her. The phase-shift extrapolator was still doing its job. Clara wanted to scream with frustration.

He moved down the stairs.

"T'Nia!" Clara reached out with her thoughts. "Can you hear me?"

"I hear you. The Veil is weakening. The First is still siphoning off low levels of regeneration energy. Try the dampening net now."

Clasping the black box in her hand, finger poised over the small button on the top, Clara activated the net and flung it towards him. For an instant he was covered in red grid lines and Clara dared hope that this might actually work. Then the machine began to whine in her hands and the lines faded.

What's happening?

T'Nia's voice echoed in her head. Eutenoyar is blocking it. The Veil is down to twenty percent.

Clara watched as the Doctor threw his arms up and the gold light engulfed him. She wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Hot tears streamed down her face. They had been so close to having it all.

#

Drellmar existed in an island of calm in a sea of confusion. "The First's machine is almost at full power," she noted.

Ashildr was shaking Clara's prone body. "You need to wake up. Come back. It's too late for him now." But Clara's body in the Diner was cold and still, and Ashildr's eyes were full of despair.

Drellmar looked at the image on the screen. She turned calmly to General T'Nia. "We need to try something else. Can we materialize inside his TARDIS and pull Clara back?"

"No-"

"Yes we can!" Ashildr yelled. "T'Nia! If you are really sorry for what your people did to me, to Clara, to him, then help us now!"

T'Nia shook her head. "But we'll still be out of phase."

"Just do it!" Ashildr roared.

Still shaking her head, T'Nia activated the materialisation sequence. "This is irregular, dangerous, and highly unlikely to work."

Drellmar smiled. "The best plans always are."

The two time ships, one out of phase with the other, existed for a impossible moment at the same coordinates. In a dizzying rush Drellmar saw both control rooms phasing in and out. The General by the book case. The Doctor surrounded by the cool white of an old style Type 40 TARDIS.

Drellmar took a deep breath and focused her attention on Clara and the Doctor. They were all she really needed to see. The confused meld of environments faded and blurred, and her friends came into focus. The Doctor burning up on his golden cross. Clara crying.

It was as if he could finally see Clara. His eyes were fixed on her, but he couldn't move or speak. The xeno-frequency energy poured from him, racing across space and time and into the First's terrible machine. The Doctor's timelines were a glorious mess, heaving and lurching around him in a dizzying rush, joining with Clara's, so many colours it seemed to Drellmar they were inside a kaleidoscope. It was madness to think she could contain any part of that chaos.

Clara screamed, reaching out to him. "It's been going on too long! We have to do something! Please, Drellmar, now!"

The Doctor's eyes locked with Clara's and it seemed to Drellmar he gained a quantum of comfort from looking into Clara's eyes, for his face softened into a smile. Their timelines pulsed and thrummed, converging as Clara stepped closer to her love, just as they had when Drellmar watched them dance together at the Strangers Ball a lifetime ago. His eyes didn't leave hers for a moment. Drellmar thought she heard his voice echoing through eternity.

Clara. You are in my head. We are stardust. We started that way and we'll end that way too. Infinite and forever. I love you.

Perhaps Clara heard it too. She reached out her hand towards his. "No. I'm not in your head, not this time. I'm here. Please! See me. Just see me and stay!" Her voice cracked, her heart broken. Yet still she stayed. They became a glorious fountain of colours swirling together in a living rainbow. If Drellmar was going to do anything, she had to do it now.

"Clara, stand back!" Drellmar yelled.

Clara shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks without shame. "No. He needs me. I won't leave him."

"It might kill you!"

Clara shook her head, determination written on every line on her face. "I'll never give him up." She didn't take her eyes off the Doctor, not for a moment. Drellmar knew it then. The hybrid was right here, flaring in glory, more powerful than anything she'd seen before, the majestic greens and blues pouring from them like Earth's aurora borealis caught in a snowglobe.

The general yelled, "The Veil is at twelve percent. Eutenoyar is through!"

This moment. Drellmar took one breath, lowered her head, and extended her consciousness beyond anything she'd tried before. She reached her hand towards the Doctor and Clara's blinding timelines. The glory of the hybrid manifest: the passion of ages. Ancient, powerful, irresistible and inevitable. Love as deep as the infinite chasm and bright as a newborn star filled Drellmar's lungs. Too hot to touch, she pulled back. How could she tolerate this pain! This task was too great, even for her. Her shoulders slumped.

Yet in her next breath she breathed in...something seductive. Something sparking in the dark as it wove itself inside her. Hope. Through it all, Clara never gave up hope. She clung onto to it now, though her heart was breaking, and the Doctor's eyes pleading for her to save herself. Clara wouldn't give up. Drellmar latched onto her. The Hybrid's energy jolted through Drellmar. Now she needed to connect to the other side...

Drellmar searched the cosmos, latching onto the energy lines streaming from the Doctor's body across the vastness of space, leading back to the crystal in the chrono-ballistic array on Gallifrey. There! The power filled Drellmar, pouring into her instead of the array. That was when she saw it: the possibility of splitting the Doctor off from his timelines and into another life. Drellmar directed every last quantum of power she possessed at those glorious colours, until, like cells dividing in a petri dish, two Doctor's existed.

Pain crashed into every nerve ending. Drellmar's body convulsed, the excess power still raging through her body. She couldn't hold power like this for more than a few seconds!

She had to send it somewhere! Burning. Pain like she never thought could exist. A universe of fire and agony within her, and flames flicking around her, a cacophony of chaos drowning out her thoughts and her vision until a purple haze descended on her. Before she fell, Drellmar sent the energy cracking upwards to the TARDIS roof. Drellmar fell to her knees in despair. Had she just split the Doctor off only to kill him by destroying the TARDIS?

Gentle arms embraced her. "It's alright," Ashildr whispered, "the machine. It's been destroyed." Ashildr shot a questioning look at the general. "The Veil?"

"The reading's going up. We have thirteen." The General stared at the view screen for a moment, and then shut the image off, as if nothing could surprise her any more when it came to the Doctor. "Point Omega Zero is still intact. Eutenoyar's machine is destroyed. And thanks to you I have enough proof to take to the High Council."

Drellmar's head pounded like a thousand temple gongs all crashing at once. "But the TARDIS. I destroyed it!"

The general crouched down, and with kindness in her dark eyes said, "Don't worry. There's a failsafe. The TARDIS will bifurcate and send the damaged section into a pocket to heal, even if it leaves one hell of a mess for the next Doctor to deal with. I'm sure she'll cope."

"That's great," Ashildr said. "But where's Clara?"

#

Primus Eutenoyar fell to his knees in front of his great machine, blue smoke curling upwards, the crystal black and cracked down the centre. He'd seen it. A glimpse of Omega. Everything he dreamed of for so long within his grasp. The engineer had not even looked up before Eutenoyar had been snatched back to Gallifrey, expelled as the Veil began to regain power.

Red robed Citadel guards burst into the Chapter House. "Under orders from General T'Nia, I'm arresting you for criminal damage to the Veil of Omega and attempted subversion of a fixed point in time. Please come with me, sir."

#

Clara dragged herself to her feet, trying to make sense out of chaos. The gold light was gone. She seemed to be in the Doctor's TARDIS, but how? The dim light made it almost impossible to see properly, but a figure in a tattered black jacket lay across the other side of the console room. Clara stood, rooted to the spot, hardly able to breathe. This was it, then. Her Doctor gone and someone else in his ragged clothes. She wanted to run.

The bundle of clothes on the floor groaned, but still Clara didn't move. Perhaps she could just leave and never look. If she never saw the next Doctor, then she could cling onto the memory of him the way she wanted to. He would find new friends, he didn't need her. But even then Clara knew she couldn't leave. Not now, when he needed a friend more than ever. She'd just make sure he was okay... As the figure on the floor stirred, though, Clara's mouth fell open. Her heart lurched.

"Clara?" The Doctor, her Doctor, pulled himself to his feet. He gaped around the console room, bleary-eyed, and then his gaze landed on her. "Clara," he said again. They stared at one another, for a long, long moment, frozen in time, neither able to move or speak.

Then he was striding towards her, capturing her in his arms, gathering her up in a desperate hug that almost knocked the breath out of her.

"I don't understand," she gasped, her head spinning. He was still here. Breathing, living. He made a desperate choking sound into her neck, as if speaking was too much and it was all he could do to stay upright and hold her close. His twin hearts hammered against her chest, vivid, vital, his skin still glowing hot, his breath ragged, but alive, so very alive.

"I'll explain." He moved back and pressed his hand lightly to her face, his thumb on her cheek, and just looked into her eyes, as if he needed to examine every millimeter of her to reassure himself this was real. "I promise I'll explain, but please, could I just kiss you now?"

All those years travelling together, dancing around each other never saying what they felt. That century their lives were torn apart across time and space. And after that, all those nights laying close but separated by the Dark Star and the pillow in the middle of their bed. All those times when they couldn't touch one another but longed to- they all fell away in a moment. He finally captured her lips with a hot, bruising kiss, so very sweet, so longed for, and so gladly given.

"I love you," Clara gasped, tears still in her eyes as the kiss broke. "I love you, I love you, but I don't understand how you're here. I saw you burn up!"

He pulled her close again, burying his face in her hair, his body melding to hers as if he planned to hold her forever. "You used an Embodied state to reach me. I sensed you near me. Best guess? Drellmar diverted the energy Eutenoyar was stealing into to our timelines and split us off here."

"But where is here?" Clara looked around properly for the first time at his TARDIS, so familiar even in the dim emergency lights.

"Drellmar had to send all that xeno energy somewhere. The TARDIS swallowed it all up, but it was too much. It overwhelmed the poor old girl. Ordinarily the TARDIS would jettison the damaged area, but since we were in it, the failsafe kicked in and placed us in a temporal pocket. The TARDIS is keeping us safe while she heals."

The Doctor flicked a switch and read off a few numbers, his face creasing into a frown. "Once she's put herself back together, this section of the TARDIS will have enough energy for one trip. I could probably even get the chameleon circuit working again one last time."

The Doctor turned back to her. "You're breathing again."

"It started soon after you were taken. T'Nia said my body reset once the chronolock…But, you… are you still you?"

He laughed, then. "Yes and no. All the speculative science about post-regeneration Embodied states suggests once a personality splits off it loses its ability to regenerate. I'll have to test myself to be sure. But...I'm just like you, Clara. One life now. And I'll spend it with you, if you'll have me."

In answer, she rose up on her toes and kissed him again. A thrill of pleasure rushed through her body, hormones, so long dormant, flooding her bloodstream, making her tingle with anticipation. "Yes. And yes, oh god, yes. But what are we going to do?"

He grinned. "Let's see. This section of the TARDIS needs a few hours to heal and stabilise before we move to our final destination. We've got decisions to make. Where we want to go, and what we want the TARDIS to be, because once we land, this portion of the ship will be locked. We won't be able to change it again. It's part of the failsafe, so there isn't uncontrolled spawning of time ships across the universe." He took her hand, his eyes sparking with energy. "And the other TARDIS? Under new management. And that's okay. My future is in safe hands."

"We could go anywhere? This part of the ship could become anything?" Clara asked. The possibilities really were endless.

"Yep. But there's no rush. Do you know what we have now?"

Clara shook her head, still dazed, but happy, so happy, to be in his arms at last. Her face must be plastered with the biggest smile ever recorded. "What do we have, Doctor?"

He kissed her again, lifting her from her feet, until she was floating, a wonderful feeling between waking and dreaming, twirling her around, right off her feet until they both laughed aloud with sheer joy.

"Time," he said, as he put her down. His smile broadened mischievously, and he began tugging her gently towards the interior of the TARDIS. Up the steps, towards the small salvaged bedroom, all the time clasping her hand and grinning. "Time to get things right."

 **Epilogue: Getting Things Right**

 **Five years later**

Drellmar looked down at a raggedy pre-teen girl huddled in the shadows. The child flinched when Drellmar touched her. "It's alright. No one is going to hurt you now," the Portant said softly. "What's your name?"

"Eshinder," the girl said in a small voice. "Are you with the rebels?"

"No. The fighting has moved over to the west now." This girl was too young to live in a war zone, caught between opposing forces, never sure where her next meal would come from or if she'd wake safe in the morning. It made Drellmar's heart ache.

Ashildr squatted at their side. "Do you have family?"

The girl turned her face away, to hide anger or tears Drellmar couldn't tell, before she whispered, "They're all dead."

"I was all alone once," Drellmar said quietly. "People did some terrible things to me. Then someone found me. He took me to a safe place where I could learn and grow." Drellmar remembered that night, so long ago now, when the Doctor had picked her up, broken and bleeding, and taken her to the Temple.

"Can I go there?" Eshinder said, her dark eyes wide and pleading.

"Not there. But we can take you to another place. You'll have to work hard and learn well. But you'll always be safe there."

"Will you be there?"

"We visit occasionally," Drellmar said, glancing at Ashildr again. "Will you come?"

The girl got to her feet, her bony arms bare and dirty, hair a tangled mess. She took Ashildr's offered hand. They picked their way across the mud of the battlefield, past burned-out vehicles.

Eshinder never could explain why she trusted the strangers that day. Perhaps she was just so weary that anything seemed better than the life she was living. But trust them she did. She followed them across Ganglack Ridge and down Eddie's Point until they came to a strangely shaped building that wasn't a building at all. And that was just the _start_ of the day's mysteries.

"Where are we now?" Eshinder whispered. They had stepped outside the ship, for it was a spaceship, not a building, and into the forest on an alien world. They walked for a long time, Eshinder holding the lady Ashildr's hand tightly, until they came onto a lane.

On Eshinder's world the tracks and roadways had been churned up by tanks and mortars, but before that, her mother had told her they were smooth and covered in black tar. But this track was cut through the countryside, hedges either side, solid ground under her feet and grass growing in the center. It looked like it had never seen a tank. The sun shone overhead, the sky was blue, and the air filled with birdsong. The whole place smelled funny. After a while Eshinder realised it was because there was no smoke. No charring or blackness winding up to the sky. The air in and out of her lungs was fresh. Eshinder had never felt anything like it.

There was a small hill in the distance, but as they closed in Eshinder saw a round door cut in the side, with two small glass windows either side. She looked questioningly at her new friends, but they just smiled. They entered the garden through a gate, brushing past delicate-smelling herbs and small-headed flowers in purple and pink and orange.

"Is this it?" Eshinder wondered. It looked magical, like something from the fairytale books her mother had read her by candlelight in the dugout, trying to distract her from the whistle and blast of the bombing. It was amazing, but from what the ladies had said, she'd expected something...bigger.

"Just wait," Ashildr said.

A tall man in a plain grey T-shirt, grey hair and dark sunglasses stood leaning on the small mailbox. How had she not seen him before?

He looked at the newcomers seriously for a moment. "More leftovers?"

Eshinder's heart sank. Perhaps he wouldn't let her stay in this new land with blue skies and bright colours. She sank back behind Ashildr.

"Doctor. Really," Ashildr chided. "This is Eshinder."

His face burst into a grin. He ducked down to Eshinder's level. "I guess my friends brought you here because you have nowhere else to go?"

Eshinder nodded. Her little heart raced, tears brimming in her eyes, but his face seemed kind when he smiled, so she sniffed and tried to be brave. He took off his sunglasses. His eyes were the bluest blue.

"Who are you?"

He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear. It wasn't a word, exactly, more like a vibration she felt in her heart that told her everything she needed to know about this strange man. That he was kind. That although the universe was filled with terror, there was a fairytale corner right here where good things happened and if she believed, then she could be part of it.

The skinny Doctor tapped her nose gently. "I can't promise you a safe universe, or even a safe life. But I promise you one thing. If you step through this door, you'll see wonders."

He headed toward the green door. Eshinder followed, Ashildr and Drellmar close behind, through the wild garden of flowers. She'd never seen so many flowers in one place before. On her world the occasional brave plant would cling to life through the mud and dust and might bloom briefly before it was crushed by boots or artillery or tanks. But this place was alive with colour. The front of the cottage - actually covered in grass so it looked like part of the hillside - offered no clues as to what might be inside. The Doctor pushed open the door.

Eshinder didn't really know what she expected when she walked through, her range of experiences being limited to a few books and a lifetime of running and hiding in the shadows. But whatever she expected, she did not expect this.

"Welcome to the Academy for Cosmic Advancement," the Doctor said with a flourish.

The first room had a six-sided central control panel, similar to the room she'd seen in Drellmar and Ashildr's ship, but it was not white like theirs, it was all greys and silvers and blues.

"Is this...a spaceship?"

"Not anymore. But it's still pretty fantastic," the Doctor said, grinning even wider now. Eshinder stood stock still, staring, trying to take it all in. The Doctor pointed to a set of steps. "Through there is a whole new world. We have classrooms and laboratories, places to live and learn and eat and sleep…other young people like you who need a helping hand. Do you know what else we have?" Eshinder shook her head, hardly able to take it all in. "Time," said the Doctor. "All the time in the world."

Then he was racing up the steps. "Come on, Eshinder," He called back over his shoulder. "I want you to meet my wife."

#

Clara maneuvered herself carefully into her office chair and pulled everything she could find about Eshinder's home planet onto her computer screen. She wanted to be sure, really sure, that the girl Ashildr and Drellmar were bringing had no living relatives. If there were, then the Academy would support Eshinder in her choices. And if there were not, well, this place would be her home for as long as she needed it.

Clara dialled a number on the internal com link. "Egret? We have a new arrival. Could you come to my office and help her get settled in?"

"Sure. Be right there," came Egret's voice. The boy-dragon-boy had been their first student. When they had returned him to his home his sister was an old woman in failing health. He cared for her and made amends, but when she died he was all alone again. That was five years ago. While many students came and went, Egret stayed.

Clara was pleased Ashildr and Drellmar were coming. It had been a few months since their last visit and things had developed since then. One thing in particular. Clara laid her hand on the small swell of her belly, feeling a gentle flutter inside her. Another thing they had thought was impossible. The Doctor had worked up a full scan of his genome soon after they arrived here. He was basically the same, except he'd lost the capacity for regeneration. He'd wear this skin until he died, and oddly, he seemed happy with that. Delighted even. The chances of them conceiving a child, he'd said, were approximately a billion to one, so Clara proceeded on the assumption it would never happen. And she would have been okay with that. But, in a universe of impossible things, here they were, Clara Oswald and the Doctor, expecting their first child.

And Clara Oswald running a school the way she wanted to run it. No OFSTED. No classes with thirty five kids but only ten textbooks to go around. Education tailored for each young person, run for the benefit of those young people. All in all, it was a dream come true.

The door burst open and the Doctor bounded in. "Eshinder likes fiddling with electronic circuits, so we stopped off at the engineering lab on the way." A skinny girl trailed behind him, followed by Ashildr and Drellmar, her eyes wide with wonder and bemusement.

Clara rose to meet her. "Hello Eshinder. Glad to meet you. I'm Clara. What do you think so far?"

She didn't speak for a while, she just stood looking back and forth between Clara and the Doctor. Finally she said, "Will I have my own bedroom?"

Egret pushed the door open, greeting Ashildr and Drellmar with a warm smile. "You brought us a new friend?"

"This is Eshinder. Egret will show you to your room and bring you for dinner so you can meet the others," Clara said.

When Egret and Eshinder left, the Doctor slipped his arm around Clara's shoulder. "Can I tell them?" he said, his excitement palpable.

"Tell us what?" Ashildr said, but Drellmar's soft smile made Clara think the Portant already knew.

Clara nodded and the Doctor put his hand on her belly. "A new human! Well, a new human-Time Lord hybrid."

"We are so not _ever_ referring to her as that…" Clara warned.

Ashildr drew Clara into a hug. "Congratulations."

Clara looked from her friends to her husband, who was as full of wild energy as ever, always ready to discover something new and was, when all was said and done, an amazing teacher. He'd found a way, despite everything: beyond life and death, to be a Doctor. The Doctor. _Her_ Doctor. And she wouldn't change a single thing.

Author's NOTE

 _So, here we are at the end of Be A Doctor, which has been an epic story for me to write. I'll be concentrating on writing original fiction more from now on, with occasional Whouffaldi, and won't post any more stories here, as to be honest the feedback and interaction from readers has been rather slim for the effort involved (I do appreciate my sole loyal reviewer who left me a comment every time XX ) If you want to follow my works, hop over to AO3 and look me up there. I've got several Clara and 12 stories over there that I haven't posted on this site, and if I do write more, that's where they will be._

 _Love KC XX_


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